House of Lords: Finance Bill Discussion

Lord Jacobs: asked the Leader of the House:
	What steps she proposes to take, following the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999, to improve the procedures for debating the Budget and the Finance Bill in this House.

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am sorry if I disappoint the noble Lord, but the House of Lords Act has no bearing on the position of this House with respect to taxation. Budget resolutions are passed in another place on the day of the Budget and have effect immediately. Debate in this House is not part of that process. As the noble Lord is probably aware, the Finance Bill is debated in this House on Second Reading, although other stages are taken formally. There are no plans to change this arrangement.

Lord Jacobs: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for her reply. Does she agree that there is great expertise in this House on economic and financial matters which is rather wasted when the Finance Bill is debated on the same day as the Bill is finally passed? Will the noble Baroness examine the possibility of having an informal debate on the Finance Bill soon after it is published in order that the ideas emanating from this House to improve the Bill can be considered adequately in another place?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that there is great expertise in this House on many of these matters, including previous Chancellors of the Exchequer--I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, in his place. On the other hand, it is the situation--and has been since the 1911 Parliament Act--that the Budget resolutions are not debated in this House. I would always hesitate, even on an informal basis, to give any commitment about other forms of debate without consultation through the usual channels and in the first instance with my noble friend the Chief Whip.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, is the noble Baroness the Leader of the House aware that while I strongly believe that this House can and should take up a much more vigorous place in the constitution now that the House of Lords Act has been passed, I do not believe that it would be right at this stage to consider unbundling the 1911 Act provisions as the Question suggests? I am glad that the noble Baroness agrees that there is considerable expertise in this House on financial matters. Therefore, as the noble Lord, Lord Jacobs, said, we should use it. Would it be in line with the new conditions in this House to change practice in future so that we have two days of debate on the Finance Bill, the first day on the Second Reading and the second for the remaining stages where amendments could be taken and dealt with; and to take steps to avoid that happening on a steamy Friday in July?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, if the noble Lord looks back at immediate history and recalls his time as a chief whip, he will recollect that the steamy Fridays in July were usually agreed between the usual channels as being precisely the time when the House wants to deal with immediate legislation rather than detailed provisions of the Finance Bill. As the noble Lord said, any different way of dealing with the Finance Bill would be part of a reorganisation of the 1911 Act. The noble Lord will know that the Finance Bill is customarily certified by Madam Speaker as a money Bill and therefore not susceptible to further proceedings in this House.

Lord Barnett: My Lords, I declare a past interest, having put a few Finance Bills on the statute book. Most tend to finish up being badly drafted--from all governments. Amendments to Finance Bills in Committee upstairs in another place tend to be put down by both parties in a party political manner. Consequently, serious scrutiny does not take place.
	The noble Lord, Lord Jacobs, has a serious point; so does the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, although he did not take it up when he was in charge. Your Lordships' House has a great deal of expertise which could be used to advantage to put better drafted Finance Bills on the statute book. I understand the problems to which my noble friend refers. However, would it not be sensible at least to consider whether there is another way--by ad hoc methods, or whatever--to deal with the issue? I see that the Deputy Chief Whip is already shaking his head; he must have seen the Treasury brief. There is a serious problem which needs to be carefully considered. It should be possible to put better Finance Bills on the statute book without the party politics. Will my noble friend at least reconsider her Answer?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I do not think I shall reconsider my Answer which was given in the context of changes that might be made in the light of the House of Lords Act. I apologise to my noble friend Lord Barnett. My line of vision was not sufficiently acute to see him sitting there and to pay tribute to his expertise in my original supplementary reply.
	I can only reiterate that there are people with enormous expertise and government experience in this area. I am sure that their contributions on broad economic policy as well as the details of financial Acts are extremely valuable. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, it is difficult in the present context to see a way of developing this within the bounds of the Finance Act. However, these may be relevant questions when we consider the long-term changes which may come about in this House.

Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, given the financial expertise which the noble Baroness has been kind enough to acknowledge exists in this House, and consistent with her earlier reply, will she ensure that early in the new year there is a full debate on European taxation so that this House can give full support to the Government in their efforts to prevent the European Commission and other European countries imposing a misbegotten withholding tax on this country with threats that unanimity in fiscal and taxation matters will be removed? I am sure that she could use her considerable influence to procure a debate which would be of great benefit, not least to the Government.

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for his support in this difficult area of policy. As I said earlier, and as he will know, in this House the timing of debates is always agreed through the usual channels. He will also be aware that his party has regular positions for debates on Wednesday afternoons and, judging by the response from around the House the subject would be popular should he propose it for that slot.

Lord Taverne: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Baroness has read in full the proceedings of the joint pre-legislation Standing Committee on the Financial Services and Markets Bill and will have seen the disproportionate contribution made to the debate by Members of this House, in particular the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Does that not reinforce the point, made from several sides, that as regards at least the technical issues in the Finance Bill there should be an opportunity for this House to make its expertise felt?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I can only reiterate that I acknowledge that expertise. Although I must confess that I have not read every part of the report to which the noble Lord refers, I know that the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and colleagues from this House was extremely important. Perhaps without breaching any confidences I may say that that was one of the reasons why my noble friend the Chief Whip, in consultation with other people in the usual channels, was anxious to see this House properly represented on that committee and would be so again in similar circumstances. As a result of the points made from different parts of the House, I suggest that if Members want a broader context for discussing the issues, it may be relevant to refer them to the Procedure Committee or to those parts of the House's administration which discuss, for example, ad hoc Select Committees. The subject might be most appropriate to that.

Baroness Hogg: My Lords, will the noble Baroness accept the precedent established in 1995 and 1996 for earlier debates; that is, shortly after the Budget under discussion? Will she do so particularly in the light of the comment, made in 1996 from the Labour Benches by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, that he very much hoped that the precedent would be made permanent?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, frankly, I can only repeat what I said in answer to the other questions. If there is a feeling around the House that the issue should be addressed in the way the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg, suggests, there are appropriate ways of doing it.

National Curriculum: Non-religious Teaching

Lord Dormand of Easington: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What provision is made in the revised national curriculum for the inclusion of the non-religious point of view.

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, the school curriculum requires schools to offer a broad and balanced curriculum which promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils. Opportunities exist within the curriculum for teaching about a breadth of religious and non-religious views. The Government have no plans to change the status of religious education or to remove the statutory framework for it.

Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, in the context of that Answer, can my noble friend confirm that only a small number of schools include in their curriculum the need to inform pupils that a substantial part of the population does not hold religious beliefs? As the religious education syllabus has broadened a good deal in recent years to include knowledge of all faiths, is it not logical and proper that it should include the non-religious point of view?

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I cannot tell my noble friend how many schools provide information about the proportion of the population which does not follow any particular religious faith. However, we ought to remember that religious education is about teaching different aspects of different religious faiths to young people, including tolerance for all faiths and for those who hold no particular religious view. Within the school curriculum, there are many opportunities--whether in English, history or the new citizenship lessons which are to be introduced--to discuss such issues.

Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords, I recognise the way in which the teaching of religion has broadened to include faiths other than Christianity and I welcome that. However, is it not the case that non-religious people have a strong moral code? Will my noble friend go further than her previous answers and encourage local education authorities fully to include non-religious teaching in their syllabus and discussions, perhaps by circulating guidance about that?

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I entirely accept the fact that many people who have no religious faith have strong moral convictions which all of us can and should respect. However, as regards religious instruction in schools, we expect teachers to cover a broad range of issues. It would be difficult to require them to teach about non-religious views in religious instruction. It is important to ensure that a broad range of views are covered and that understanding and tolerance are part of what teachers are conveying.

Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I welcome the Minister's comment that religious education is about religion rather than non-religion. Her colleague in another place, Jacqui Smith, today issued a press release which states:
	"Collective Worship also provides an opportunity for promoting pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development".
	What does "promoting" mean in that context?

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I have not seen that document which was apparently issued today. Indeed, this is the first that I have heard about it. I cannot really answer what was meant by the word "promoting" in that context as I have not seen the document.

Lord Janner of Braunstone: My Lords, will my noble friend please use this opportunity to congratulate those many teachers who, especially at this time of year, organise multi-faith celebrations so that children in their schools may understand, enjoy and appreciate not only their own religions, but also those of other people?

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that intervention. We should all congratulate teachers who undertake what is often a difficult task in covering a wide range of religious views and beliefs in our multi-faith society. It is one of the strengths of our schools that they do that so effectively.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, should not the Government give considerable encouragement to the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, in that the citizenship curriculum coming into force in autumn 2002 has as one of its basic foundations the whole question of values and is designed to help pupils to develop their own values and their own moral autonomy? Should that not go a long way towards giving solace to the questioner?

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, yes. I greatly endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has said. The citizenship curriculum will be able to cover a wide range of issues including questions of morality and democracy. It covers the kind of issues of which we want all young people to be aware, including their obligations to members of their own community and indeed to communities far beyond the one in which they live.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, is correct in saying that an awful lot of children do not know anything about religion, is that not a good reason for them being taught it? I presume that if they were not taught it, they would not know much about mathematics either.

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am not sure that my noble friend was saying that many young people do not know much about religion, although of course he may speak for himself. I believe that he was saying that many adults in this society do not follow any particular religious faith. The statistics show clearly that that is the case.

Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that the Question is about the non-religious point of view and that it is not answered by widening the range of religions covered? Will she agree that my noble friend is raising specifically the position of those who have no religion and will she address the issue from that point of view?

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I thought that I had already made it clear that it is possible for those issues to be raised and discussed with pupils in our schools in many different aspects of the curriculum. It is particularly appropriate at the secondary stage and that is indeed what I believe happens.

Afghanistan

Baroness Rawlings: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What are the latest regulations covering the travel of British subjects working with charitable non-governmental organisations in Afghanistan.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the Government continue to advise strongly all British subjects against travel to Afghanistan because there is a significant threat to their safety. For that reason, DfID will not fund the activities in Afghanistan of NGOs which send British personnel into the country against the Government's advice. The Secretary of State for International Development explained the Government's position more fully in a letter to the Chairman of the International Development Committee on 5th August, a copy of which is in the Library of the House.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer even though it is not at all satisfactory. We all agree that the Taliban is an evil regime and should on no account be recognised, but will the Minister tell us why, either through NGOs or by other means, we cannot support the Tajiks, the Shia Hazaras or Ahmed Shah Masoud, who have always held the British in high esteem and have been our friends?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the advice of DfID is quite specific: we shall not fund organisations which send expatriates into Afghanistan against Government advice. However, we continue to fund NGOs which use local personnel. We have just concluded a review of that policy and have changed the policy slightly to enable NGOs to send in expatriates for small periods of time. We shall continue to review the policy on a regular basis.

Viscount Waverley: My Lords, under what conditions do the Government expect to recognise the Taliban?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, at this moment in time I am unable to give the noble Viscount a direct answer to that question.

Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is the Minister aware that there are well-attested violations of human rights, particularly in relation to women, in the Taliban-dominated part of Afghanistan? What action have the Government taken in relation to those violations?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the Government are extremely concerned about human rights violations in Afghanistan. We have taken an extremely strong position in relation to our development assistance, which is represented also in the EU position on aid, in which we are clear that aid is agreed only where there is an equitable relationship between women and men in terms of the disbursement of that aid. In addition, we press in all ways possible the Taliban and others involved in Afghanistan about violations of human rights.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, in view of what the Minister has just said, will she assure the House that when aid agencies send personnel into Afghanistan on the temporary assignments that she mentioned, there is no discrimination by the Taliban in terms of insisting that only male members of staff be sent in?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I can only repeat what I said in reply to previous questions: we take the human rights issues and, in particular, the issue of violations of human rights against women and girls very seriously indeed. It is a matter which we are taking up with NGOs which will be sending personnel for short periods of time into Afghanistan. They understand the Government's position fully.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the restrictions in the case of the United Nations agencies have been relaxed somewhat without them coming to terms with the Taliban? Cannot the United Kingdom follow that example and give more encouragement to the NGOs?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, it is important for the House to recognise that the International Red Cross and the UN organisations are in a different position to other NGOs. The UN sent personnel into Afghanistan again from March this year. They withdrew their personnel in October last year. My understanding is that the position will be kept under review. As I said, we have amended our policy slightly to enable NGOs working in Afghanistan to be more effective. They indicated to us that it would be helpful to have personnel going in for short periods of time. We have amended our policy in order to enable that to happen. We shall keep that policy under review, but there is a specific and targeted threat against UK and US nationals which we must take extremely seriously.

Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, surely we should be trying our best to help NGOs to go into Afghanistan to assist people who are being dreadfully abused by the Taliban and who live in the most appalling conditions. Surely that is consistent with an ethical foreign policy. To ignore their needs seems to me to run counter to an ethical foreign policy.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the fact that the Government have agreed over £4 million in development assistance to Afghanistan this year--a figure which will increase to between £6 million and £8 million in the coming year--illustrates that they are taking the situation extremely seriously. We appreciate that there is a humanitarian crisis. However, there is also a serious security threat which we must understand and take seriously.

Armed Forces Pension Review

Baroness Strange: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they can give a firm date for when the Armed Forces pension review is to be published.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the review of the Armed Forces pension scheme announced in September 1998 is under way. A review of this magnitude, which considers wide-ranging and complex issues affecting a wide range of groups, necessarily takes time. It is expected that the review will report next summer.

Baroness Strange: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her sympathetic, if familiar, reply. I am sure that she is aware that I am speaking about the Act relating to attributable Armed Forces family pensions, with particular reference to the retention of pensions on the remarriage of post-1973 war widows. However, is she aware that yesterday was the Feast of St. Nicholas, who is renowned for filling the stockings of young ladies unable to get married because they do not have a dowry? Would it not be seasonably jolly if the MoD were also to play Santa Claus?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am very glad that my response is a familiar one; I hope that that at least has the merit of consistency. We shall carry forward this review as quickly as possible. It is a complex issue and needs a considerable amount of work. In a seasonable spirit, I say to the noble Baroness that I believe that there are two reviews which are of interest to those concerned. The noble Baroness is, of course, particularly concerned about war widows. The first is the Joint Compensation Review, which looks at paying compensation to members of the Armed Forces for death, injury or illness which arises as a result of their military service. That compensation review is due to report early next year and we hope to have proposals for public consultation early in the year 2000.
	The second review relates to the Armed Forces pension scheme. That is a comprehensive review which will take into account the question which I know is of particular concern to the noble Baroness; that is, that relating to life-long pensions for widows--pensions which are not withdrawn on remarriage. Therefore, there are two reviews which I hope will be of interest to her.

Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, can the noble Baroness confirm that the present pay and issue of service personnel are abated by a percentage to pay for their Armed Forces pension? I believe that that abatement is around 7 per cent. Can she assure the House that a basic assumption has been made in the review that that percentage will not be increased?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I do not want to prejudice the outcome of the review next year but, of course, the noble and gallant Lord is quite right. There is an abatement of salary of members of the Armed Forces to pay for their pension. In that respect, it is similar to the Civil Service pension scheme and, indeed, to a number of other public service pensions. The abatement reflects the view of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body about what is a sensible level of abatement for Armed Forces pensions. While it is of interest to those undertaking the review, I am sure that that matter will remain also of very great interest to the body itself.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, is the review intended to clear up the anomaly which has arisen over attributable benefits for about 600 TA and reservists who fought in the Gulf War?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I hope that the review of the Armed Forces pension scheme--not the review about compensation but the second review about which I spoke a moment or two ago--will deal with the question raised by the noble Countess. If there is any reason for me to revise that answer, I shall make sure that I write to her as quickly as possible. However, it is my understanding that that is indeed the case.

Lord Burnham: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister whether the reply which she gave to the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, about timing with regard to the pension review will apply also to the plans for the revision of the methods of pay for the Armed Forces as a whole. If that is not completed at that time, will there be any disadvantage to the Armed Forces in that they will not receive appropriate pay increases?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, in answer to a recent Written Question, I informed Members of your Lordships' House that the adjustments to be made to the pay of the Armed Forces will now take place in the year 2001. I shall write with further details because the explanation is rather lengthy. The noble Lord could look it up in Hansard, but I shall be very happy to write to him giving proper details of what that involves. However, it is deferred until 2001.

Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell us whether the review will deal sympathetically with the differential between Gurkha pensioners and those pensioners who belong to Great Britain? Will she tell us something about progress in that sphere?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord will find that the differential to which he refers has in fact been rectified. An announcement was made about three or four weeks ago, but I shall write to the noble Lord with the details.

Business of the House: Private Notice Questions

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, with the indulgence of the House, perhaps I may ask the Leader of the House if she will assist the House on a matter that has arisen which is, I believe, of procedural importance.
	This morning I sought to ask a PNQ on what the Government have been saying to the Government of Russia about the war in Chechnya, where an ultimatum has now been issued to the citizens of Grozny. The Leader of the House declined that PNQ request. She is entitled to do so and I advise the House to accept that.
	However, I have asked a PNQ for a second reason in addition to the intrinsic importance of the matter. In the other place there is a procedure known as a Deferred Question. That is a rare procedure. This afternoon the Foreign Secretary has chosen personally to use that procedure to answer an Opposition Question on Chechnya couched in precisely the same terms as my PNQ. The convention is clear: that, when a Statement or PNQ is offered in another place by the Government, it is also offered here. If the usual channels request it, it is repeated.
	Therefore, my question to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House is this. I believe that, ideally, matters should be dealt with by a Statement. But if they are not and if the Deferred Question procedure is to be used again, how will she protect the right of the House to be offered information given to the other place by the Government? If a matter is important enough for the Foreign Secretary or another senior Minister to use that procedure to inform another place, surely it is intrinsically important enough also to be heard in this House. Does the noble Baroness agree that this is a procedural issue warranting careful consideration? In the light of what I have said, will she consider the case for a Statement to be made at the very earliest opportunity tomorrow on the unfolding situation in Chechnya?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am sure that we all agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the situation in Chechnya is serious. If he considers what he has said and looks at what has happened in another place today, I believe that he will be aware that the request to have a Private Notice Question or Statement was refused by Madam Speaker in the other place. Therefore, the procedures which he quite rightly says are normally followed here do not need to be followed. He rightly points out that we do not have the rather different procedure of a Deferred Question.
	He will be aware that Foreign Office Questions have taken place in another place this afternoon. Therefore, the Foreign Secretary was there in order to answer a Question which, as I understand it, was rather similar to the one which was afterwards tabled as a PNQ and, indeed, as I said, turned down by Madam Speaker. Again as I understand it from the other end of the Corridor, the reason is that the Foreign Secretary suggested that that might be dealt with under the rather arcane procedure, if I can call it that, of the Deferred Question simply because he did not want the whole of Foreign Office Questions to be devoted to the Chechnya question, as they feared might happen if he took the Question as originally scheduled in the line-up of Foreign Office Questions this afternoon.
	Therefore, I believe that the situation is slightly more complicated than the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition suggested. I suggest to him that the procedure for Private Notice Questions in this House has worked well in the past, continues to work now, and I see no particular reason for revisiting it. At least the noble Lord has not suggested, as I rather feared he might, that we should attempt to change our procedures on this matter in the light of the passage of the House of Lords Act.

Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is the Minister aware that some of us have considerable sympathy with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde? I believe that the matter is worthy of consideration at the next meeting of the Procedure Committee. Is she aware that many of us recognise the difficulty facing any Leader of the House when Private Notice Questions are tabled? I certainly do not believe in challenging such decisions.
	However, is she also aware that many noble Lords are not as satisfied as she appears to be about the way in which the matter has been handled in the past? Many of us can recall arguments in the last Parliament when Private Notice Questions were turned down, in the view of many of us, entirely unreasonably. Finally, is she aware that many of us take the view that, if the Leader of the Opposition tables a Private Notice Question on a matter of considerable public importance, it should be allowed?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am not sure that I necessarily agree with everything said by the noble Lord, Lord Harris; nor am I sure of what precisely he does not accept. If he does not accept that this House has a different way of dealing with Private Notice Questions to another place, that is an issue which should be dealt with under the organisation of the procedure of this House. If he is concerned about the particular circumstances of today, I hope that in my response to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, I drew attention to the different position in which the other place is dealing with Foreign Office questions. It is simply a question of where a particular issue--I agree of seriousness--is taken in that context.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am sorry to disagree with the noble Baroness. My understanding is that the Government have deliberately used a procedure which exists in another place to avoid the necessity of either making a Statement to the House or, indeed, answering a PNQ. The authority I have for that is taken from page 291 of Erskine May, which states:
	"Although there is no explicit provision for such procedures in Standing Orders, these practices have by convention been allowed as being subsumed within the provisions for making ministerial statements".
	That is my point. Clearly, an answer which is being subsumed into a ministerial Statement is being given to the House of Commons and being denied here.

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I can only repeat what I said to the noble Lord when he made the point earlier. The Private Notice Question in another place was refused by Madam Speaker. It is the case that it is Foreign Office Questions this afternoon. The decision was taken to use this procedure. As I understand it, though his information may be slightly different to mine, as may his sources of information, that was done to make it possible to discuss Chechnya without it dominating the whole of Foreign Office Questions.
	If we are being pernickety, I would point out to the noble Lord--I would not do so except that he has returned to a point which I thought was satisfactorily answered--that I understand that he tabled his PNQ one minute before the deadline this morning. Indeed, he did not inform me, except in an indirect message, that he intended to raise this matter on the Floor of the House.

Lord Eden of Winton: My Lords, perhaps I may press the Minister a little further. Can she confirm that it is the intention of the Government to make a Statement on the situation in Chechnya in this House tomorrow?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: No, my Lords, I cannot. As the noble Lord will be aware, matters concerning the operation of Business in this House are always decided through the usual channels. It would be inappropriate for me to pre-empt, from the Dispatch Box, any decisions about the Business of the House in that way.

The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, the Minister referred to the fact that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde tabled a Question one minute before the deadline. It is, therefore, within the deadline. How many minutes, hours or days before the deadline does the Minister think is acceptable to take Private Notice Questions?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, the noble Earl makes an insubstantial point. I simply pointed out that if the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, felt this to be an extremely serious matter, as he obviously did, his Question could have been tabled earlier. That would have enabled more time for discussion. Indeed, as I have said, he could have discussed it with me personally. That was my only point.

Lord Molyneaux of Killead: My Lords, will the noble Baroness the Leader of the House keep an open mind on the possibility of a Statement tomorrow, particularly when she has read what has been said not only by the Foreign Secretary but about possible revelations concerning Foreign Office contacts with what one might nowadays call "dissidents" in that country?

Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, the noble Lord makes an entirely relevant and important point about the substantive nature of the issue we are discussing; that is, the serious issue of what is happening in Chechnya. Of course I keep an open mind. My response to the earlier question was simply to abide by the normal understandings that these matters are not decided by one Minister or the Leader of the House at the Dispatch Box, but through the usual channels.

Children (Leaving Care) Bill [H.L.]

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Two years ago this Government published the Report of the Review of Safeguards for Children Living Away From Home. That review was conducted by Sir William Utting and revealed a picture of failure. Many children who had been taken into care to offer them protection and help had been neither protected nor helped. Some had actually suffered harm at the hands of those supposed to help them. Others had just been badly let down. They had been moved from placement to placement, from school to school, and then turned out to fend for themselves when they reached 16. This was a failure of the whole system.
	I remind noble Lords of some of the statistics lying behind this drive to improve standards for children and young people in and leaving care. As many as 75 per cent of children leave care with no educational qualifications. As many as 50 per cent are unemployed. Twenty per cent experience homelessness within two years of leaving care. An increasing proportion of young people leave care at 16 to fend for themselves. In 1993, 33 per cent of those leaving care between 16 and 18 were aged 16. In 1998 that figure had risen to 46 per cent. Compare that with the average age at which young people leave home in this country, which is 22. Is it any wonder they struggle to cope?
	There are complex underlying reasons, but one of the most powerful boils down to money. At 16, young people can claim state benefits so there is an incentive for local authorities to discharge them from care and on to someone else's budget. We need to tackle this sort of perverse incentive. This Bill does so.
	In July this year we published a consultation document, Me, Survive Out There?, setting out all these issues and our proposals for dealing with them. We had a very encouraging response. More than 160 organisations, authorities and individuals replied. Eighty-three per cent of the responses supported our proposals. We are grateful to all those who replied. This Bill is the result. It follows closely the outline of the consultation document.
	We believe that local authorities' responsibilities towards young people in and leaving care should correspond more closely to those of responsible parents. That means providing support and assistance for children beyond the age of 16. Young people in and leaving care should be able to expect this from their corporate parent. That is why Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill place new responsibilities on local authorities to assess and meet the care and support needs of children aged 16 and 17 who are in their care or who have left care.
	For those who have left care, the local authority that last looked after a child will be responsible for continuing support wherever the young person is living. Responsible local authorities will have a duty to keep in touch with these young people wherever they move to; a duty that will apply beyond 18 up to the age of 21. No longer will local authorities be able to forget their responsibilities to the young people who leave their care.
	It is important that young people are helped to prepare and plan for their future to enable them to achieve their aspirations. That is why, from their sixteenth birthday or as soon as they become eligible under the new arrangements, young people in and leaving care will have a pathway plan. The plan will map out a clear pathway to independence and will cover education, training, career plans and the support to be provided by the local authority. Young people will be directly involved in drawing up the plans, as will other interested parties, and the plan will be reviewed regularly to develop with the changing circumstances and ambitions of the young person.
	The first three clauses of the Bill introduce the duty to provide young people in and leaving care with pathway plans. The duty will apply to all eligible and relevant children aged 16 and 17 who are in care or who have left care and will continue up to the age of 21 (and beyond where the young person is in higher education). The same clauses also introduce a parallel duty to provide these young people with young person's advisers. Currently many young people are unaware of the services that are available to them or how to access them and it is essential that under the new arrangements young people receive the support and assistance they need in a co-ordinated and accessible way.
	The young person's adviser will provide a single point of contact for the young person, easily contactable in times of crisis or whenever advice is needed and able to put the young person in contact with other specialists such as careers advisers. The adviser will also be responsible for overseeing the pathway plan and ensuring that the young person receives the advice and support to which he is entitled. For young people who have left care, the adviser will be expected to fulfil the local authority's new duty to keep in touch.
	Education and training is one of the best ways to improve a young person's life chances, and we believe that local authorities should encourage and help care leavers continue in education. That is why Clause 4 of this Bill gives local authorities new responsibilities and powers to make support available for care leavers in higher education. Currently, local authorities can assist care leavers with the costs associated with education or training up to the age of 24 only if they start the course before the age of 21. Clause 4 will get rid of this restriction. Young people in this particular group are often ready for higher education later than their peers, so this provision allows local authorities to provide assistance whenever the young person starts the course.
	One of the disadvantages faced by care leavers in higher education is having no family to return to for vacations. That is why Clause 4 of the Bill also places a new duty on local authorities to assist a care leaver in higher education with vacation accommodation where this is needed.
	All these new arrangements for young people in and leaving care will be underpinned by a new financial regime, the foundations of which will be laid by Clause 6 of the Bill. Currently, too many children leave care before they are ready to do so. The proportion of 16 and 17-year olds leaving care at the age of 16 increased from one third in 1993 to a little under one half in 1998. This trend is alarming and we are determined to reverse it. We believe that one reason for this trend is the perverse financial incentive for local authorities to push children as young as 16 out of care and onto benefits. The new financial arrangements will remove this incentive and recognise that young people in and leaving care need proper support and guidance, not just cash.
	The funds from income support, housing benefit and jobseeker's allowance to which these young people are currently eligible will, therefore, be transferred to a new budget, to be allocated to local authorities to support these young people properly. This budget will be based on local authorities' existing spend on this group, drawing in additional resources from the children's social services special grant, making extra money available to ensure that local authorities are able to fulfil their new duties to this vulnerable group. We want to see local authorities act more like responsible parents towards the children in and leaving their care.
	We recognise that at present certain 16 and 17 year olds--such as disabled children and lone parents--are eligible for income support even if they live at home with their parents, recognising that they have special needs. The new financial arrangements will continue to recognise that these groups have special needs. Clause 6 contains provisions allowing the Secretary of State to exempt certain groups from the new financial arrangements and we intend to use this power to ensure that disabled children and lone parents keep their present entitlements to income support.
	Taken together these measures add up to a substantial package of support, both personal and financial. We believe that it will make a significant difference to the life chances of these young people, helping them to grow into independence and a rewarding adulthood. But it would be naive to assume that it will always be sweetness and light. Inevitably there will be disagreements and failures.
	We anticipate that the involving and empowering aspect of pathway planning will minimise disputes but nonetheless we have to have a robust, swift and sensitive means of dealing with complaints. The Bill provides for regulations to describe the complaints procedure for these young people. We anticipate using the existing machinery but building in additional sensitivity, such as an advocate for the young person. We shall also be monitoring closely how quickly complaints are resolved. Young people do not have the leisure to put their lives on hold while bureaucracies grind slowly through processes. Again, we hope that most complaints will be settled amicably and quickly, but, again, it would be naive to assume that this will always be the case.
	There have always been troubled young people who run away from local authorities and it is wise to assume that there always will be. For these young people, we need to make sure that there is emergency provision to pick them up and a support system which is flexible enough to encourage them back on terms which they can accept. For emergencies, these young people will still be eligible for emergency help from any local authority in whose area they fetch up. As now, they may turn up at refuges such as Centrepoint, or at night shelters. Emergency provision will see them through the short time it takes to re-establish contact with their responsible authority.
	Our new arrangements are designed to be as responsive as possible to young people disaffected with their local authority, for whatever reason. They can live wherever they choose in the country, and their authority will still be responsible for maintaining them. So there will be no more disputes between authorities about whose budget the young person belongs with. The main point of contact will be the young person's adviser. If the young person wishes, that contact can be minimal and it can be the only contact he or she need have with any local authority. And should that relationship be the root of the problem--even though the young person will have had a major hand in choosing the adviser in the first place--there will be scope for making changes. These measures are intended to ensure that no young person needs emergency support for long; and that where there are problems a solution can be reached as quickly as possible.
	This Bill is mainly about provision for young people aged 16 and 17 in and leaving care. We know that there is a strong lobby to extend support as well to those aged 18 and over. In our response to the Utting report we said that the Government are minded to extend this duty until the young person reaches the age of 21. However we will first study the costs, limitations and affordability of doing so.
	The Bill makes young persons' advisers and pathway plans available to care leavers up to the age of 21, or 24, as I said, if they are being supported in education or training. Authorities can provide support for education and must provide vacation accommodation for higher education if it is needed. The Bill places a duty on local authorities to keep in touch with these young people. Local authorities already have a power to assist, in kind or in cash, and we have made provision for the Secretary of State to make regulations about special groups in respect of whom that power would be converted to a duty. We are determined to maintain support for young people leaving care and to help them--not to push them--into fully independent adult lives.
	In conclusion, we believe that young people in and leaving care have not been getting a fair deal; their life chances have been unacceptably restricted and too many end up socially excluded, without qualifications, without jobs and without homes. Too many are forced to leave care before they are ready. As the corporate parent of this vulnerable group, this Government recognise their special responsibilities and duties. All local authorities must act as responsible parents would towards their own children, supporting them in the transition from childhood to adulthood. They must ensure that, on leaving care, these young people are not isolated but participate socially and economically as citizens.
	The Children (Leaving Care) Bill will provide the statutory framework through which the Government can change the local authority care and support system to give these young people the support that they need and deserve.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.--(Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.)

Earl Howe: My Lords, on behalf of noble Lords on these Benches I should like to express my thanks to the Minister for his very clear and helpful introduction to this Bill. It is a Bill that we greatly welcome. Ten years ago the passing of the Children Act represented a landmark in the level of legal protection afforded to young people. The Children (Leaving Care) Bill extends and brings up to date the provisions of that Act, as they apply to perhaps the most vulnerable group of children in our society; namely, children in care.
	If we wanted a reason to justify the importance of this measure, we need look no further than the sobering statistics associated with care leavers; indeed, the Minister has already given us some of them. Of the 5,000 children who leave the care system each year, whether that care has been provided by foster parents, by a residential home or by others, more than three-quarters have absolutely no academic qualifications. Between 50 per cent and 80 per cent are unemployed. Some 30 per cent of single homeless young people have previously been in care, as have no fewer than 23 per cent of adult prisoners and 38 per cent of young prisoners. If these figures do not resonate with sufficient clarity, we should perhaps reflect on the statistical base line. Care leavers account for less than 1 per cent of their age group, yet they comprise a vastly greater proportion of those who are in some way disadvantaged. It should not surprise us that care leavers have been shown in recent studies to be an especially unhappy, vulnerable and dissatisfied group of young people who feel rejected by the system.
	Yet the system ought to be looking after them. The statutory duties of local authorities to prepare children for leaving care and to support them afterwards were laid down in the Children Act 1989 and in associated regulations. These duties, combined with a number of discretionary powers, enable local authorities to provide for the well-being of young people who leave the care system. However, experience has shown a woeful degree of variation in the level and type of pre-care and post-care support given by local authorities around the country. Some authorities are models of excellence. But, all too often, budgetary constraints lead to the opposite result; for example, the amounts paid under leaving-care grants vary from £2,000 down to just a very few pounds. Similar differences are evident in the financial assistance provided for further education and training for employment.
	What we are talking about here, of course, is that most important ingredient in the life and expectations of any young person; namely, opportunity. For those who begin their adult lives without the love and support of a family--or, indeed, without the love and support of anyone at all--the absence of a helping hand at that stage can very often mean the denial of such opportunity. Worse still: it can also lead directly to that damaging downward path that leads to homelessness, unemployment and crime.
	The system, too, contains some perverse incentives. A local authority may be tempted to look for ways of discharging a young person from care early, because in doing so it will enable the burden of maintaining that individual to be shifted away from itself and onto the benefits budget. Increasingly the figures show that the average age at which young people are being discharged from care is coming down--in many cases to as low as 15. The Minister rightly alluded to that fact. This is an extremely worrying trend.
	If we think of what happens in ordinary families where, quite typically, parents continue to provide support for a child until he or she reaches the age of 22, we can see better what kind of a deep end we are pushing these young people towards. That push, it must be said, often comes from the children themselves, who find the care system oppressive and cannot get out of it soon enough. But the world that they move into, frequently with high hopes, can be a world of disappointment, characterised by dependence on benefits, seedy accommodation and a lack of any kind of emotional support.
	It is these difficult issues that this new measure sets out to address. I shall not go over the Bill's detailed provisions that have already been covered so well by the Minister. Let me say though, at the outset, that we believe them to represent in broad terms a very decided step forwards. In particular, we welcome the emphasis in the Bill on treating care and after-care as a continuum rather than as two discrete stages in a child's life. We welcome the attempt to remove any perverse incentive that a local authority may have to discharge children from care at too young an age. We very much support what I venture to say is the Bill's underlying theme, which is that each and every child leaving care is an individual whose wants and needs are different from those of the next child and who deserves the kind of support that he would receive had he been brought up in an ordinary family.
	However, two things will make or break these proposals. The first of these is resources, sufficient to enable them to be delivered properly. The second requirement is that the whole process of needs assessments, pathway plans, personal advisers and ongoing support must be one that the children themselves can trust and take ownership of. One of the themes emerging from published research is that children do not feel sufficiently in control of what happens to them as they leave care. They want to feel as independent of social services as it is possible to be. The close involvement of the child in the preparation and review of pathway plans, and conveying the feeling that his or her wishes are taken account of, is absolutely essential if each plan is to work as it should.
	I hope that the Government will take these concerns on board by the time the Bill comes into force. As regards resources, I understand why Ministers have been minded to consider ring-fencing the budget for care leavers. But I confess that I have considerable doubts about the wisdom of it. The problem with ring-fencing is that the more it occurs, the more pressure builds up on other local authority core services. It leaves absolutely no room at all for flexibility. Important as care leavers are, the ring-fencing of funds sends a message to local authorities that somehow they are not to be trusted and that all they are really good for is to act as agencies for delivering the Government's policies. I wonder whether the Government should look again at this aspect and find another way round the problem, perhaps by setting minimum standards.
	As an aside to this, I have seen the concern expressed that the money from the "Quality Protects" initiative has already been allocated and will not, at least for the most part, be available for the purposes that the Government now intend for it under this Bill. What is the Minister's comment on that? Can he say how much money overall the Treasury is budgeting to fulfil the provisions of the Bill, and how much of this is new money?
	Under the heading of "resources", I feel that I must express a concern over the ability of local authorities to deliver the sort of service that will be expected of them when, in manpower terms, many of them are already stretched to the limit. What role do the Government see for voluntary agencies in this field? Do not the Government envisage practical difficulties emerging for local authorities who find themselves having to discharge their duties at a considerable geographical distance from a young person? Will these difficulties be reflected in the funding formula?
	Looking at the Bill as a whole, I think it is unfortunate to say the least that devolution has created some anomalous differences for care leavers north and south of the Border. Scottish care leavers who move to England will not be "eligible" or "relevant" children under this Bill and will, therefore, be treated differently from English and Welsh children. In my view, this can only complicate the lives of such children and place them even further apart from the benefits system than they are at present.
	We are told in the Explanatory Notes that English children who move to live in Scotland will continue to be able to claim social security benefits. If a child is in such a situation, will the Minister confirm that it will make no difference whatever to the requirement for his or her local authority in England to continue discharging the various duties that the Bill places on it?
	I turn briefly to other, more detailed topics. I think that we shall want to explore in Committee whether the definition of eligible children is as wide or as flexible as it ought to be. For example, there are some particularly vulnerable children who may not have been in care for long, but who nevertheless are deserving of ongoing support. I should also like to ask the Minister whether the Government intend that young people on remand and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children should be eligible for support, as was suggested in the original consultation document.
	I should be grateful, too, if the Minister could say what special provisions will be put in place for disabled care leavers. Local authority statistics of 1998 indicated that up to a quarter of the looked-after population is disabled. Will the guidance that is issued reflect the specific needs and experiences of those young people?
	We shall wish to look at the powers that the Bill gives to local authorities as distinct from duties. We shall wish to ensure that the balance between the two is the right one. Under that broad heading can the Minister say whether the Government intend to stipulate in regulations a minimum baseline rate of financial support for care leavers? It seems to me that unless that is done--whether or not the budget is ring-fenced--young people will find themselves subject to a similar sort of lottery from different local authorities, as exists at the moment.
	I understand why the Government have chosen to remove care leavers from the scope of the social security system, but concerns arise from this. A blanket exclusion from benefits could leave the most vulnerable children without any source of financial support--for example, children who become estranged from their personal adviser and from the care system. Will the Government consider whether a discretionary right to claim severe hardship allowance could continue for the small minority who find themselves in need of a financial safety net? In that context we should remember that short of a 100 per cent robust and watertight system--which no system can be--there will always be some care leavers who are in danger of falling through the cracks.
	The Government's consultation document proposed that an independent mediation and appeals mechanism should be established to cater for those children and young people who are in dispute with their social workers over their pathway plan. An independent review panel would allow care leavers access to independent representation at appeal, and also serve, by virtue of its very existence, as a guarantor of local authority obligations. Can the Minister say why these important proposals have not been incorporated in the Bill?
	These are only some of the issues that we shall wish to explore in Committee. For now, let me say this. This is a Bill which addresses the needs of a special group of young people--special in that their ability to reach their full potential and then go on to lead fulfilling lives is dependent on their not being short-changed by society. The former Secretary of State, Mr Dobson, observed in the consultation document that the duty we owe to them is exactly the same duty as we owe to our own children, and that the support we provide should, as far as possible, be the same support as young people receive who have been looked after by their families. Let me add a wholehearted "Amen" to that. We look forward to playing our part in putting a Bill on the statute book that will bring a better and fairer system of support to those who have a right to expect exactly that.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I join the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in thanking the Minister for his clear exposition of the provisions of the Bill. The Bill is the result of a long campaign by the voluntary sector to improve life and life chances for care leavers.
	I want in particular to pay a tribute to Tory Laughland, the founder of the Who Cares Trust, the caring organisation for young people in, and leaving, care. I first met her in the early 1990s when she was campaigning for young people in care and leaving care. I was sponsoring homeless projects through Kingfisher plc's community involvement programme. It was clear that a totally disproportionate number of young people leaving care became homeless and ended up sleeping rough, as indeed they still do. She inspired the company to work with caring organisations to try to develop independence training for young people leaving care, and linked to job opportunities.
	However, it was an uphill battle getting politicians to wake up to the way in which society was failing these vulnerable young people who were effectively thrown out of care at the age of 16. I am just sad that Tory Laughland is not alive today to see her campaign come to fruition. The reason Tory was so effective in her campaign for and with young care leavers was because she applied the kind of tests to corporate parenthood that we do not think twice about in relation to our own children. Above all, she believed in listening to young people in and leaving care and asking them what they wanted.
	What caring parents would want their own children to have to fend for themselves totally once they reach the age of 16? Yet it is a horrifying fact that even now half of all care leavers do so at 16, despite their lack of maturity and life skills to enable them to cope adequately. However, as has been pointed out by Utting's children's safeguards review, the government response and the subsequent consultation paper, the current care system gives a perverse financial incentive to local authorities and young people to terminate care early, as the Minister pointed out. That is why so many of us welcomed the tone of the consultation paper which stated:
	"Some people leaving care have been let down badly. They have been expected to cope with independence too early and with too little support".
	In the letter to councillors in September 1998, the former Secretary of State, Mr Dobson, stated that local authorities should,
	"provide the kind of loyal support that any good parent would give their children".
	I strongly support that statement. That is the yardstick by which the reforms set out in this Bill should be measured.
	In that light, we on these Benches of course support a great deal of what is proposed in the Bill. We welcome the new duties imposed on local authorities to support care leavers from the ages of 16 to 18. In particular, we support the new duties as regards personal and financial support. We are concerned, however, that cash support should still be given so that money management skills can be learned. We also have worries about the total withdrawal of benefit for those young people who become estranged from their personal adviser. Should not severe hardship allowance be available in those circumstances?
	In addition, although the Government appear unwilling to accept the point, we believe that consistency between local authorities as regards levels of financial support is vital, particularly with regard to the care-leaving grant, and that regulations should provide for that. At the end of the day, however, if these new duties are to operate properly, adequate government levels of funding need to be provided for local authorities. Can the Minister give an assurance that that will be the case?
	We also welcome the duty to develop pathway plans for each eligible young person about to leave care. However, when will these start to be prepared? It should be well before potential care leavers reach the age of 16. The young person must also be closely involved, and consulted, in the process.
	We also welcome the introduction of young persons' advisers. I hope in particular that the role of the voluntary sector--I agree with the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in this respect--in providing advisers will be a strong one. I welcome the Government's statement that young people will have a choice as regards who their adviser should be.
	We also welcome the statement that grants to local authorities to support care leavers will be ring-fenced. We welcome the adoption of educational guidelines and the adoption of targets for the attainment of GCSEs and GNVQs for looked-after children and those leaving care in 2001 and 2003. I know that the equal chances programme has already had a major impact.
	More generally, we on these Benches welcome the introduction of quality protects action plans in January 1999, but the Social Services Inspectorate showed in the document Someone Else's Children? that however good the policies and safeguards adopted, they will be a failure unless backed by proper checks to ensure that they are applied. But do we yet have evidence that these action plans are making a difference?
	Along with a great many voluntary organisations in this field despite the Government's very best intentions, measured by the loyal support test to which I referred earlier, we have concluded that the contents of the Bill, as it currently stands, are not good enough.
	First, there is the major issue of support for those aged 18 to 21 years. In their consultation document, the Government were "minded" to extend duties not only to 18, but beyond that to the age of 21. Did they receive a single response against that? Why is the proposal not in the Bill? Have the Government now decided that that is not now affordable? Is this not simply the dead hand of the Treasury at work? How much of a war chest do the Government actually need before they can agree to these proposals? What estimate of prospective cost have the Government actually made?
	Secondly, there is the issue, already referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, as regards the 13-week threshold for eligibility. As currently drafted, it may be too hard and fast. The major voluntary organisations say that local authorities should be bound to review the cases of those with less than 13 weeks eligibility since there are numbers of young people who have not formerly been in care but in residential schools, health service provisions and so on, who may need to be treated as though they were care leavers under the Bill. Understandably, local authorities have a rather different perspective. That needs to be resolved in debate on the Bill at Committee stage.
	Thirdly, unlike the consultation paper, why does the Bill make no reference to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children? Are they not at great risk if they are not brought within the scope of this Bill?
	Fourthly, I refer to the power to assist those between 21 and 24 years of age who have left care and are in higher education. If they have left care--irrespective of when they started--is not that power inadequate? One of the key areas where we must improve outcomes for care leavers is in the field of education. Should not that be a duty? There have been some extremely hard cases of local authorities denying responsibility even for loans, let alone grants, and as a result young people have been unable to take up the offer of a place in higher education.
	Fifthly, there is the question of an independent review panel, either nationally or in each local authority area. It is vital that there is some route by which a young person can question the initial pathway plan and its subsequent review. On occasion, there may be differences with his or her personal adviser which need to be resolved. The young person may well need an independent source of advocacy. The question is asked in the consultation document but, sadly, the answer is ducked in the Bill. I hope that we can obtain clarification from the Minister on that.
	Finally, we need to ask whether there will be explicit reference in regulations under the Bill to guidance on the specific needs and experience of disabled young people leaving care. That is an area which also needs urgent clarification. However, I welcome the Minister's clarification on the scope of Clause 6.
	In principle, we on these Benches support this Bill. Outcomes for care leavers are a national scandal. But if we are going to change the Children Act for the first time since it was enacted in 1989, we need to get it right. We on these Benches will work at Committee stage to do just that. We need a system which will really meet the needs of all care leavers and where the duties of corporate parents are aligned with those of natural parents; a system where these young people can finally have the opportunities in life which have been denied them for so long and which the rest of us take for granted.

Lord Laming: My Lords, perhaps I may also express my gratitude to the Minister for the helpful introduction to this important Bill. May I also say what a pleasure it is to follow the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones? As I have the honour to be the president of the Who Cares Trust, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for the warm tribute that he paid to that organisation which I believe does excellent work. I am grateful for his support of it.
	Last night I had reason to express marked reservations about the Local Government Bill, so this afternoon it gives me particular pleasure to say how delighted I am to welcome the Children (Leaving Care) Bill. I believe it is great credit to the Government that they have demonstrated a priority to improve the protection and quality of care and life opportunities for young people in public care. The work of the interdepartmental ministerial group, the Quality Protects initiative and the consultation document are all clear indications of the Government's commitment and concern for these young people. In this Bill the Government have gone beyond that to set out a framework to support young people at a critical time in their lives when they leave public care. That is very important because for too long society has expected far too much from young people who have the least in every way in terms of resources, education, family support and social help.
	Most of these young people have had traumatic experiences which have scarred their young lives. Many will have been let down by the very adults they had the right to look to for their care and protection. Many will have had severely disrupted education which leaves them ill equipped to take their place in society.
	But all of them have the right to expect local authorities to be a "good parent". I support the points that have already been made about the standards that we should set to judge the notion of a good parent. Many authorities, ably supported by some excellent specialist voluntary bodies, try to achieve very high standards of care for the children for whom they have a particular responsibility. That should be acknowledged and praised where it occurs. But, alas, that is not always the case. Too often young people are encouraged or allowed to leave care at the earliest opportunity. For the reasons set out by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, it is no wonder that many of them finish up in bad company or in bad practice. Too many of them end up in young offender institutions.
	The Minister said that the generality of young people in this country leave home at the average age of 22. That is so, but they do not leave home finally and for ever. They leave home but have the continued support of their parents. They can fall back at any time on their help and support; a word of encouragement or consolation. They can have that support in a continuing way for many years. Young people leaving care have no such security as they face an uncertain future.
	It is for that reason that I would like to raise a number of points for consideration by the Minister and which he touched on his helpful opening statement. First, I so much welcome new Section 19B of the Children Act which places on local authorities the duty to assess the needs of 16 and 17 year-olds and to continue to provide a personal adviser for them until the age of 21. But would not it be better to make that a duty to assess and meet the needs of all young people up to the age of 21?
	Secondly, can the Minister assure your Lordships that the resources exist to ensure that local authorities will not seek ways to avoid their responsibilities which are now set out in the Bill? It would be helpful if the Minister could give an assurance that the performance of local authorities will be monitored in that way.
	Thirdly, would the Minister consider making it a duty to assist young people who are now in further education, or who may be, up to the age of 24 years? Being a good parent is about having ambitions for one's children and supporting them through higher education so they can live up to their full capacity, realise their full potential, take their place in society and become useful and fulfilled citizens.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, indicated, we have had already experience of young people being denied the opportunity of further education or having it cut off at a most unwelcome time. So will the Minister consider making it a duty to assist young people in further education up to the age of 24?
	Fourthly, will the Minister consider that as regards appeals the local authority should have a duty to give a young person access to an independent source of advice and advocacy? Many young people feel suspicious, to put it mildly, concerning the motivation of local authorities. Access to an independent source of advice and advocacy is an essential part in helping them to present their position and to achieve what they believe to be a reasonable outcome.
	Fifthly, although I support entirely the requirement that a local authority must retain responsibility for each young person wherever that young person is living in England and Wales, is the Minister aware that some local authorities have dispersed young people in their care across many authorities and often at great distance from the home authority? Will the Minister ensure that this responsibility to be placed on local authorities will be rigorously monitored? In many instances I fear that there has been an element of out of sight, out of mind.
	Finally, perhaps I may refer to the phrase "keep in touch" in new Section 23B. That phrase has a rather casual sound to it and could amount to no more than a Christmas card sent once a year. Does the Minister agree that it would be advisable to find a stronger form of words to ensure that contact is not only maintained but that it is effective, reliable and robust?
	Having said that, I believe that the Bill is much needed and offers greater security, well-being and new life opportunities for young people leaving care. I hope that it will command the support of all parts of your Lordships' House.

Baroness David: My Lords, I give a very warm welcome to the Bill and thank the Minister for his clear exposition of it. This Bill completes the unfinished business left by the Children Act 1989. As one who took an active part in the whole passage of that Bill, I am delighted that support for 16 to 18 year-olds, which a number of us--Lady Faithfull, that doughty campaigner for children, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and I--fought, is now to be provided. These children will have the financial, educational and pastoral support and help we knew to be essential.
	I would be grateful for clarification on a few points, which I hope the Minister will be able to give when he replies to the debate. The first is: exactly what defines an eligible child? The Explanatory Notes suggest that it means children who have been looked after for a prescribed period after their 14th birthday. This could exclude children who may have had a few episodes in care up to the age of 14, returned home for two years, then suffered the break-up of their family. They would still be subject to a care order, but ineligible for the support and assistance provided in the Bill. Others in the care of a local authority are those in residential special schools or local authority boarding schools. Will they be covered by the Bill? I believe that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, asked about that.
	My next point is the definition of a "responsible authority" as the last one that looked after the child. It is good to pin down the responsibility, but there could be problems. A young person seeking either education or a job could move around the country quite a bit and it could be quite difficult to keep in touch with him or her. Suppose that a young person in pursuit of employment moves from Hull to London. The responsible authority will still have a duty to carry out the needs assessment, prepare a pathway plan and appoint a personal adviser--all at a distance. If the funding is to follow the child, will it be the case that in practice the London authority will assess the young person's needs, prepare the pathway plan, allocate appropriate accommodation and provide the personal adviser--all funded by Hull? One would have thought that the sensible thing was for the responsible authority to be the leaving care team of the social services department of the London authority. I hope that the Minister can clear this up.
	Let us consider young adults between 18 and 21 who up to a point are covered by the Bill. Will local authority duties still include the provision of suitable accommodation even though they could be eligible for housing benefit? Perhaps that is covered by Clause 6. The requirement to provide vacation accommodation in new Section 24B for those up to the age of 24 applies only to those in higher education. Would the Government be willing to think again about that and include those undertaking further education and other educational training courses, in view of the often difficult educational history experienced by these young people--frequent changes of school, for example--and often the resultant gap between their schooling and later return to education or training? Could this assistance include those who join the Armed Forces but have no home to go to when they are on leave?
	I very much like the idea of the personal adviser who will be the liaison between the local authority and the care leaver--a very important person in the child's life. Is this adviser to be a trained social worker from within the authority or someone from the voluntary sector, who may perhaps be more independent? He or she will be a very important ally for the young person who may be disillusioned by the care system. There must be a genuine partnership and trust between them. Will there be training for the social workers or advisers? Will there be necessary qualifications? What relationship will there be between them and the youth support service which is to be set up by the learning and skills Bill which will soon be with us?
	I have mentioned the pathway plan. I have a few doubts about the exact plans proposed which are to start following a young person's 16th birthday. That seems a little late. I believe that another noble Lord made that point. Would it not be more sensible to start at 14, when a number of decisions are made at school about subjects to be followed leading up to GCSE and the sort of career or job that will suit the pupil? Also the plan should have clear links to the young person's care plan. What mechanisms will be in place to ensure that the services outlined within the plan--which could include a place on a further education course or the provision of continuing medical care--will be delivered? The Government may have good reasons for starting at 16, but I would like an explanation of the justification for that.
	There is one class of young person not mentioned in the Bill--the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred to this--but it was in the consultative document, Me, Survive out there? on page 41. These are the unaccompanied refugee children. They are likely to fall within the responsibility of the local authority but may well not fill the eligible children requirements. Will the Government expand the eligibility requirements to include these young people who might otherwise be left without family, without employment, without accommodation, without financial support and possibly not even able to speak the language? So they really would suffer social exclusion. In April 1999 there were about 2,500 asylum seekers aged 16 and 17. Currently--I do not vouch for my figures: they came from the consultative document--there are about 400 such children being looked after by local authorities, sometimes placed in isolated bed-and-breakfast accommodation. They should be treated as "children in need", as described in the 1989 Act. A recent Amnesty International report states that,
	"Central government clearly needs to give a lead in this area".
	I hope that they will.
	On finance, I can understand why Clause 6 was put into the Bill. There are good reasons for making funding the responsibility of one agency. But there must be adequate resources. This is essential if the Bill is going to work. This is going to be expensive, even though the benefits now paid out will be reduced. Can we have some reassurance on this matter?
	My final point involves the Care Standards Bill, which is to have its Second Reading on Monday next. It is vital that that Bill works and I hope that it is implemented at the same time as this Bill, where one will be dependent upon the success of the other. We are all too aware of the crises and scandals that there have been in our children's homes. It is imperative that children should have a happy experience, loving relationships and a good education, even when they are in care. That has certainly not been the case up until now, or only in certain places. The plans for their future, making sure that they go on at 16 to further education or training for a job, in suitable accommodation, which this Bill provides, should make a far-reaching change to these very vulnerable children's future. I congratulate the Government on bringing the Bill forward. I hope that it will work well and that it will have the support of all Members of this House.

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I first became conscious of this problem about six or seven years ago when I was asked by the Who Cares Trust to take a group of young people to hand in a petition at 10 Downing Street. They were a selected group but I found them extremely convincing. They then came back to the Palace of Westminster and spoke very well about their problems.
	I congratulate the Government on addressing this issue. It might well have been addressed before by previous administrations, but it was not. This Government have taken it on, and hats off to them for doing so. The Bill sets out, subject to one or two issues that were raised by earlier speakers, what needs to be done. I wish to speak for a few moments about my doubts that it will be done. It is easy to set out a list of things that need to be done but there are one or two things about which we ought to be concerned.
	The first, your Lordships will not be surprised to hear, is the question of money, to which a number of speakers have already referred. I have the social services performance indicators 1998-99 for local authority expenditure on children in care. The gross weekly cost of placing a child in a children's home varies from a minimum of £163 to a maximum of £4,832 in another authority. I have to say that the figures are very odd. Greenwich spends £269 while Lambeth spends £1,815. Kingston-upon-Thames spends £335 while Waltham Forest spends £2,141. It would be interesting to know whether those figures have any meaning at all. If they do, they suggest that some local authorities take their responsibilities more seriously than others.
	That leads me to a question. As local authorities already have discretionary powers to do most of these things, and as it is obvious that these things are desirable, why have all local authorities not been doing them? I have thought of two answers. The first is that they perceive themselves as not having enough money to do them; the second is that they perceive other things as having a higher political expediency--to put it crudely, kinds of expenditure that will attract more votes. I ask myself whether the position will be any different after the Bill becomes law. I accept that the Bill takes matters that have been discretionary and makes them mandatory. The reality is that the Government have never actually taken local authorities to court for not doing what they are supposed to do under the law, so why are we to suppose that local authorities will not "cock a snook" at the Government and not do what they are obliged to do under this Bill? The noble Lord may have a good answer to that question, but I do not understand the position.
	Have the Government made an estimate of the gross costs of implementing the Bill? Will the Government provide all or part of that cash? The noble Lord indicated that they will provide part of it. Is it realistic to expect local authorities to provide the other part, given that they already appear to be unable to do what they are supposed to be doing? I support the necessity to ring-fence the cash because otherwise local authorities will spend it on lamp posts or kerbs--expenditure which attracts more votes.
	The next issue is people. Who will implement the Bill? From where will the people come? I was told that in Tower Hamlets about seven or eight weeks ago 32 children were "at risk" who had not been appointed a social worker. One social worker, who has been known to us at Toynbee Hall for a very long time, has a case list of 80. One can imagine that a good many of those children will not be seen at all. A case list of 80 is absurd. I am asking the Government to be realistic about the situation and either help local authorities to find the money to implement the Bill or give them some more money to do it. It is no use making laws if nothing is going to happen.
	On the question of people, in Tower Hamlets we found in regard to the Government's arrangements for learning mentors--I mentioned this point during the debate on the Queen's Speech--that the local schools had been advertising for learning mentors at some £3,000 to £4,000 a year above the salaries being paid to local youth workers, with a nine-to-five job and full school holidays. As youth workers are expected to work on a great deal less money all the hours that God made, youth workers are simply applying to become learning mentors. All the Government are doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul: leaving us with a greatly enfeebled youth service but a learning mentor service that will work. Will the same happen in this case? Will people to implement this Bill be taken from other services and thereby ensure that there is net additional benefit? The noble Baroness, Lady David, mentioned NVQs or diplomas in respect of training. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Caldecott Foundation and Caldecott College. Training is of fundamental importance.
	The noble Earl, Lord Howe, said that the Bill treats care and aftercare as a continuum. That is good. But what no one has so far mentioned is that a child's life is a continuum before he or she was taken into care. It is in that critical period before he or she was taken into care that most of the trouble arose which caused him or her to be taken into care. To quote the outcomes for children who have been in care, in terms of crime and so on, is in a way unrealistic because it is a group of children who have been selected to go into care precisely because their life experiences have been so awful that they cannot stay with their families. We have to look at the continuum. I cannot help wondering whether the Government are looking sufficiently hard at trying to avoid the situations arising which put those children into care in the first place. I come back to my old point--more support for parents. I know that the Government are already doing a good deal in that field.
	Another issue is care in the care homes. Again we come back to people. Are the Government aware that not quite 10 per cent of people working in care homes have any relevant qualification? Ninety per cent of people working in care homes have no relevant qualifications. Is it any wonder that these children are fairly lost by the time they reach the end of their experience in care? What about therapeutic care? These children have sometimes had frightful emotional experiences, abuse and so on. Is there provision for therapeutic care and for support while children are in the children's home?
	Finally, I should like to refer to a subject which I raise as often as I can and shall continue to do so until I have nudged the Government into doing something about it. I refer to families without fathers. In saying this, I am not stigmatising single mothers--far from it. The problem is the fathers. I am not stigmatising fathers, because it is not the fathers' fault; it is our fault. We have evolved a society in which young men have never been taught that they have a responsibility to be a proper role model to their children. We have evolved a society in which our values are individualist. People want to develop their own lifestyle without a proper element of consideration of responsibility to others. In this context, I have looked at the Government's draft PSHE and citizenship curriculum, which is shortly to be published. I should like to ask whether this House will have an opportunity to debate that curriculum. What our children are taught in school about the values of our society is fundamental to the future of our country. The curriculum is quite good. It does not, however, make any reference to the parental responsibility of fathers. Bearing in mind that now 20 per cent of all families are families without fathers, we must look at why so many young men do not want to be, or are not capable of being, responsible fathers.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, perhaps I can provide the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, with some reassurance that not all local authorities are dilatory as regards their responsibilities to these young people. I am council leader in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and am a former chairman of the social services committee. The council that I lead has been operating a service to help care leavers for the past 10 years. It is based on a clear philosophy of sound inter-agency partnerships and effective practical assistance to those children.
	The service follows a good parent model. No child being looked after is discharged before 18 years old unless he or she returns to their family or there are other special circumstances. Each care leaver has an individual plan which is prepared during his or her time with the local authority. Just before age 16, those plans are hardened into future progress. The young people can live in supported places until they are 20, and are then given help to find independent housing--when they feel able to move, and not before. Once in independent housing, they are given help to furnish and look after their home and to budget and care for themselves. They also have a key worker or supporter until they are at least 21.
	I hope that from this noble Lords will understand that there is at least one local authority that has taken very seriously its parental responsibility for the children who come into its care. With no parents, or no adequate parents, they need to be able to rely on the local authority to provide them with an affectionate and supportive home, practical guidance and advice.
	Therefore, I welcome the tenor and purpose behind the Bill. However, one or two areas give me cause for concern. At the danger of being seriously repetitious given the comments of previous speakers, I shall touch on them briefly. I have received some briefing from the Action on After Care Consortium. So as not to bore the House and cover the same ground again, I shall raise only two matters which were put to me by that organisation.
	We need to ensure that the recommendations in Sir William Utting's review on children safeguards and in the second report of the Health Select Committee are fulfilled. My council is presently working under discretionary powers in assessing and meeting the needs of these young children. New Section 19B introduces a new duty to do that, but only when the children reach the age of 16 or 17. In our experience, that does not take the situation far enough. Young people often leave home in their 20s. Most of them need our support and care until they are 21 or 22, or well into their 20s. Many need financial support until then.
	Our experience is that young people need cash, not help in kind. Most young people need to learn to manage money. If they do not have to manage money and if people feed them in all kinds of other ways, they do not learn to manage a budget and to cope with what is probably not quite enough. Does any young person ever have enough money? They have to learn to cope with what they have. I hope that under the provisions of new Section 24A the Minister will reconsider whether cash should not be the normal way of providing financial assistance. I should welcome it if he would take that idea on board.
	Finally, perhaps I may comment on a matter raised by the noble Earl, Lord Howe; namely, the ring-fencing of funding. As a council leader with a budget, my heart fails when I hear about anything being ring-fenced. Our social services budget is 22 per cent over SSA, so we are already supporting social services to a considerable extent. But ring-fencing is not usually helpful in the long run. I admit that some local authorities are less good at managing their budgets and in those cases ring-fenced funding may be better. But on the whole, if matters are left to the local authority's discretion it will ensure that money is provided in the proper way and in adequate amounts.
	I welcome the Bill. It is long overdue. Children and young people in local authority care need more than proper and adequate care. They need as much care as we give to our own children.

Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I hope that Hansard will correct my name as it appears on the list of speakers and identify me as a female. For some reason, the Whips' Office keeps putting me down on the list as Lord Masham! I expect that I am trapped in the computer as a Lord.
	I am pleased to congratulate the Government on the introduction of this Bill. I agree with them that vulnerable young people need comprehensive personal support rather than cash alone. The Bill is the best measure that the Government have undertaken, and this House may be able to make it even better by adding more protection.
	For years I was a member of the board of visitors of a young offender institution. The age group at a YOI is between 15 and 21 years. In recent years, the increase in 15 and 16 year-olds coming into the YOIs is of great concern. About 40 per cent of those young people come from care. One could tell which ones came from the care system. They were much more institutionalised. They were classed as homeless. I have always felt that young people who have not had a home of their own--even if the homes were uncaring and problematical--are more vulnerable than other young people. They must feel rejected and so often their self-esteem is understandably low, even though some put on a brave front. When those young people were discharged from the young offender institution, it was no surprise that many returned soon after, simply not having been able to cope.
	A Catholic chaplain from the young offender institution at Deerbolt in County Durham and I felt strongly that the young people leaving without family support needed a befriending service in an attempt to keep them on the right road. We held a seminar with the boys, who agreed that that was necessary. It is not easy to get such a scheme working on a voluntary basis. The young, enthusiastic priest was dismayed when he did not receive support from the churches in the localities from which some of the most vulnerable young people came.
	That is why I am pleased that what will be new Section 23B(2) will require the local authority to appoint a personal adviser for each relevant child. Should it not already have done so?
	It will be interesting to see how the pathway plans develop. I shall not be surprised if local authorities find it necessary to set up some drug and alcohol treatment centres for young people. Drug and alcohol abuse has become a problem among children, but no one seems to realise that, like adults, they need treatment for addiction. Was it not the case that the only treatment centre for young people in London closed last year when the problem was getting worse?
	Last year I attended a video screening by Barnado's of the terrible problems experienced by young girls in Leeds, Bradford and Halifax, many of whom had absconded from care and been sucked into a culture of drugs and prostitution. It showed the cunning cruelty of pimps. The care system has let down these youngsters. It has become part of the culture of the underworld to entice teenagers into prostitution--and the younger, the better. I hope that when this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament it will help to stop this degrading practice involving children.
	The headlines of the Ripon Gazette on Friday 3rd December read:
	"Ex-carer guilty of sexual abuse.
	Former child care worker Malcolm Stride was yesterday found guilty of sexually abusing young boys over a period of nine years, while he was employed at Barnardo's Spring Hill School in Ripon".
	These children are at risk both within a place that they should be able to trust and in the complex world outside. I ask the Minister what checks will be made on advisers. I hope that the whole House will support the Government in trying to help vulnerable children and young people who are at immense risk from sexual and drug abuse, or just loneliness, and are being left behind in a competitive society.
	To protect the most vulnerable young people who leave care will need good co-operation and communication from all the care agencies, from the education and employment agencies and from the Police and Probation Services. Looking after damaged and difficult young people needs understanding, experience and dedication as well as adequate funds.

Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, too often in the past we have had occasion in your Lordships' House to draw attention to the tragedy and scandal of what happens to young people who leave care. The tragedy has been well illustrated this afternoon by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and others, notably by reference to the fact that about 40 per cent of youngsters in YOIs have been in care and approximately 40 per cent of homeless young people have been in care. The scandal is that these are the products of the system of care for young people. The results can be seen in low educational attainment, inadequate preparation for being ejected into the cold outside world and lack of support after leaving care. All of these factors need to be tackled. It is not just the job, or the fault, of central Government. Local government and voluntary organisations such as NCH Action for Children, of which I am vice-chairman, must bear a large part of the blame and make a major contribution to putting it right. NCH has learnt from its failures and gives a high priority to providing aftercare support to young people who leave care. It now has some 50 projects. I join in the praise for the Who Cares Trust. I like to regard NCH and other bodies of that kind as part of the response. But the essence of what I have to say is that we are all part of the problem and need to be part of the solution to it.
	The fact that we have the Bill before us today shows that central Government have learnt. It is not merely the Bill for which central Government deserve praise. I warmly welcome what the Government have done in respect of educational provision and more generally in the context of the social exclusion programme to tackle the interconnected issues. The proposals in this Bill in effect offer a new deal to care leavers. That is the point of central importance in this Bill. The new provisions will also have the valuable by-product of saving a great deal of money which would otherwise have been spent or, rather, wasted.
	This afternoon emphasis has rightly been laid on the need for adequate resources. Every year 2,500 care leavers end up in young offender institutions. If this measure helps only one in 10 of those youngsters to stay out of YOIs it will save society about £7 million a year just for starters. The lifelong benefits to young people and to all of us will be immeasurable. But we must look at the need for resources in the context of what is to be saved. I hope that my noble friend will keep that in mind in deciding whether to target a little extra money on the most vulnerable care leavers in ways that should make a good Bill even better.
	I warmly welcome the cross-party support for the Bill this afternoon. I join previous speakers in making a few modest and, I hope, constructive suggestions that perhaps will make a good Bill better. My first suggestion relates to the duty placed on local authorities to assess and meet the needs of all 16 and 17 year-olds whom they have looked after and to continue to provide a personal adviser for them until they reach the age of 21. While this is a considerable advance on the present situation, there is a strong case for extending the duty on local authorities to assess and meet needs up to the age of 21. As NCH projects have emphasised, the most vulnerable are typically those who are most difficult to work with. That was one of the main reasons why Utting recommended that the discretionary powers in Section 24 of the Children Act 1989 should be converted into a duty and that young people should be supported up to the age of 21. To restrict support up until the age of 18 to a hard-pressed personal adviser may simply mean that the care precipice is shifted forward and that young people fall over the edge at 18 rather than 16. It is an improvement but it is not a situation that we want or that we would tolerate for our own children or grandchildren.
	My second point relates to the power to provide assistance for expenses related to employment, education and training. The change proposed in Clause 24 would give local authorities power to provide grants to care leavers up to the age of 24 to assist with expenses connected with education or training. At present their power is exercisable for the most part up to the age of 21, so that sounds like an advance. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and others have said, some local authorities are very reluctant to use their powers. There are good and poor local authorities, and that is why I believe that the power to provide assistance should be converted into a duty. The aim to improve the employability and skill levels of young care leavers is absolutely critical to this Bill.
	One NCH project has drawn attention to the case of a young man who at 17 is still the subject of a care order and is attending a carpentry course. The authority will not help him with bus fares to get to the course which cost him £8.25 per week. All participants on the course have to wear steel-capped shoes. The young lad could not afford the £40 cost and faced exclusion from the course until the NCH project suggested it might contact the local press. There are still problems ahead. In time the lad will need to purchase tools. By that time he will probably be out of care. The local authority has said that it will not help with any further expenses. Many good local authorities are using their powers sympathetically, but unless these are made into duties I fear that some authorities will continue to fail their care leavers.
	My final point relates to Clause 6, exclusion from benefits, to which reference has been made. As my noble friend, Lord Hunt, reminded us, there are two possible sources of support at the moment--central Government and local government. Far too often this has led to unhelpful wrangling over which has responsibility. In general I welcome Clause 6, which offers both the establishment of a clear national minimum standard of support and removes the typical entitlements to benefit, except for lone parents and disabled people. This should at least ensure consistency of treatment.
	As has been said, it is possible for a care leaver to become estranged from his or her local authority, just as a young person can fall out with his or her natural parents. His or her attitude may be regarded as unreasonable, even bolshie, but it may none the less be very real and totally intractable. I welcome the assurance given by my noble friend Lord Hunt that there will be a fall-back safety net for those who could be among the most vulnerable and exposed young people. Not to provide one could force them to live, as it were, off the land--and we all know what that means in terms of squatting, petty crime, even in terms of prostitution and drug pushing. We know, too, that once a young person has developed a pattern of living of that kind it is extremely hard to break out. I welcome my noble friend's clarification of what will happen if a young person falls out with a local authority and into this trap.
	However, like the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I should like to press him a little further on this point. What provision will be made in the exceptional cases where a youngster cannot come to terms with even indirect contact with his or her local authority? Will my noble friend consider providing access to the severe hardship allowance--perhaps conditional upon a rigorous but sympathetic independent examination of why the young person is unable to maintain a relationship with a local authority--and ensure that appropriate action is taken?
	In the debate, emphasis has rightly been laid on the need to listen to care leavers. I am sure that my noble friend and the Government he represents will set a good example by listening to the constructive suggestions that have been made today for--I repeat--making a good Bill even better.

The Earl of Rosslyn: My Lords, I should like to say something about the Bill from a criminal justice perspective. In so doing, I declare an interest as a serving police officer in the Thames Valley, where I am currently head of youth justice for the force.
	It is well known that a disproportionate amount of crime is committed by young people, especially by young males. The 1994 Audit Commission report, Misspent Youth, records that about a quarter of all known offenders are under the age of 18 and that together they are responsible for some 7 million offences each year. But it is important in the context of the debate to remember that young people are also more likely to be victims of crime than adults, with 16 to 19 year-olds having, for example, the highest risk of being assaulted.
	Although there is no way of predicting accurately which individuals will offend, we know that young people in certain circumstances are at much greater risk of doing so. Those circumstances may relate to the family; for example, where there has been neglect by parents, family conflict or the absence of a good relationship with either parent; where family attitudes have condoned anti-social and criminal behaviour; where there is a parent or sibling with a criminal record; or where family income is low. Young people who say that their attachment to their family is weak are more likely to report that they have committed offences, as are those who have experienced cruelty and abuse at the hands of their parents.
	The risk may arise from the young person's relationship, or lack of it, with his or her school; for example, through low achievement, beginning in a primary school; aggressive behaviour or bullying. Young people who truant or who are excluded from school are also more likely to offend. Some 42 per cent of offenders sentenced in the youth court have been excluded from school, while half of truants offend compared to a quarter of non-truants. Research has shown a significant correlation between those young people who experience difficulties of various sorts within the educational setting and those who demonstrate delinquent behaviour.
	The risk might develop from the young person's relationships with individuals, friends or from the community more generally. I refer to peer group pressure to offend, unstable living conditions, lack of training and employment, and drug and alcohol abuse, all of which have been shown to be factors which increase the risk of offending.
	There is also evidence to suggest that aspects of health are correlated in some respects with offending behaviour. The review by Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons in 1997, for example, indicated that 40 per cent of young people in custody presented with some long-standing physical illness, almost double the figure for the general population. This is not to assert that a causal link exists between ill health and a tendency towards delinquency, but the factors associated with the risk of becoming involved in offending may also predispose young people to adopt unhealthy lifestyles.
	Those who experience many or all of these risk factors throughout their childhood and teenage years are at the highest risk of getting caught up in a cycle of anti-social behaviour, including offending, which it is difficult to break. The association appears to be a strong one, with over 80 per cent of young males who experience four or five of such influences being actual offenders.
	It is only realistic to suppose that many young people in care will have been exposed to such risk factors. For some, those risks will have led directly to the young person's initial placement in care. Evidence of such risks is not difficult to find. For example, local audits taken following the Audit Commission's 1994 study, Seen but not heard, found that nearly half of all children of school age living in local authority residential homes were not attending school on the day the auditor called, and one-third were not receiving any formal education. The main reasons for their non-attendance were being excluded from school or refusing to attend.
	Other research in 1989 by Centrepoint suggested that nearly 60 per cent of young homeless people had been in social services care at some point in their lives, while 39 per cent of all male prisoners under 21 have been looked after by the local authority at some stage in their childhood.
	At the time of leaving care, such young people are, one might feel, particularly vulnerable. The 5,000 or so a year who leave at present do so at the age of 16 or 17 while, as the consultation document preceding the Bill indicated, the average age for leaving home for the population as a whole is 22. As my noble friend Lord Laming pointed out, the level of support available to those two groups is unlikely to be comparable.
	Many continue to move frequently after leaving care-- 40 per cent experiencing one or more moves and 10 per cent making four or more moves in the first three to nine months. Many find themselves living in unstable conditions in temporary accommodation with little support and in areas where the levels of criminality and drug misuse are high.
	The measures in the Bill will, I believe, enable young people to prepare more effectively for the future and provide a better degree of support as they move towards independence. The content of the proposed pathway plan, or that suggested in the consultation document, seeks to address directly the very range of risk factors to which I referred earlier: education; employment; health; accommodation; personal and financial support; and life skills. With the young person's adviser fulfilling what seems in many respects to be the role of a mentor, there is an opportunity for a one-to-one relationship to be established, and from that a young person may find greater confidence and raised levels of achievement--academic, personal or job related.
	However, as the experience of a growing number of mentoring projects in this country and elsewhere has shown, high quality staff, careful recruitment and training, and well constructed programmes will be required if the mentoring relationship is to be a successful one. Can the Minister say anything more about the guidance on the recruitment and training of the young person's adviser referred to in the consultation document? In the debate on 22nd November, my noble friend Lord Northbourne--he mentioned it again today--referred in a different context to experienced youth workers being siphoned off into higher-paid posts as learning mentors for which exactly the same qualifications were required. I wonder whether the Minister has any concerns that similar difficulties could arise when the recruitment of young persons' advisers is undertaken.
	The success with which care leavers make their transition to independence and the extent to which they are given a more equal chance of a fulfilling life should be of concern to us all since their interests and those of society are in these circumstances so interdependent. For such reasons as these, I warmly welcome the intentions of the Bill.

Lord Elton: My Lords, it is a great and somewhat unusual pleasure to be able to offer an unreserved welcome to the intentions of a government Bill. It is a great and even more unusual experience, in particular with the reformation of this House, to be sandwiched between a couple of hereditary Earls younger than myself, both with more experience than I have of dealing hands on with the problems of disadvantaged young people. We are fortunate to have retained their services.
	In welcoming the Bill, I acknowledge the debt of gratitude due also to the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and his friends in the Who Cares Trust in pushing public concern in the right direction. My interest arises from my interest in juvenile offenders, acquired when I was the Minister responsible for prisons. I have bored your Lordships with that often enough not to repeat it. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, nods--in a rather hurtful way!

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I nodded to indicate that we had heard the noble Lord. We always listen attentively because we always have a lot to learn from him.

Lord Elton: My Lords, I shall try to change the tune in order to retain the noble Baroness's attention.
	It is not necessary for me to repeat the various indicators that being in care is a clear predictor of criminal involvement, sad though that is. I see a parallel with another predictor to which the noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn, referred: exclusion from school. As president of the DIVERT Trust, I declare an interest in this matter. Because they are so at risk, we have been developing mentoring schemes for dealing with children who are on the edge of exclusion from school. The Bill deals with children on the edge of exclusion from society by appointing not mentors but personal advisers. The Minister repeatedly referred to them as "young persons' advisers". I wonder whether we have the opportunity to avoid a divergence of jargon. With a tiny amendment at Committee stage, perhaps we could change the name in the Bill so that it fits with what the Minister is currently making popular jargon.
	A mentor, a personal adviser, or a young person's adviser, is a strange, precious and rare creature. He or she has to be available--that is, accessible. In some urban authorities, he or she is not difficult to find from local authority personnel. However, in local authorities with a wide geographic area, that may be extremely difficult. It is even more difficult to find someone who is sympathetic to the young person.
	Crucial to the plan in the Bill is the development of pathway plans. It is no good having the most splendid, detailed and compellingly convincing pathway plan for a young person if the young person does not think that he or she owns it. It takes great skill to guide a young person into adopting a pathway plan which you, as an adult, think that that young person should adopt. It does not follow that because the Government wish this to be done by local authorities, and even though local authorities are eager and willing to do so, those personnel will be available. They will need training even if they are in post. We have already heard of the shortage of training in the care system--hence a good deal of its trouble--and it is no good passing children from one set of untrained supervision to another.
	I have another word of caution for the Minister. My experience in various guises of young children is that when they get into trouble they are almost always in rebellion against authority. Authority is expressed by them through the contemptuous word "them": "They won't let us do it"; "It's all because of them"; and "them" represents a series of concentric circles of authority which may start close to the home and then embrace the teacher, the probation officer, the social worker, the policeman, or any employee of local authority.
	The people required who are in post may not be geographically accessible. They will need training; and they will need personal characteristics which are pretty rare to find. At this point I do not feel that I have to apologise for bringing forward again the voluntary sector or for suggesting to the Minister that it may be a good source of trainable or trained mentors. I do not put forward any claim on behalf of the DIVERT Trust. I put forward a claim on behalf of the voluntary sector. There are many others involved in the voluntary sector besides the trust. I ask the Minister to recognise, and to ensure that local authorities recognise, that it is not a source of cut-price personal advisers, or young people's advisers. Those people have to be trained. If not, they will not be efficient. They are a valuable resource which will be lost if those whose skills should be used in this direction are deployed in raising funds to gain compensation for employment.
	There has been a great change in thinking in the past 10 or 12 years, not only by this Government, but also by the previous government. I came into government in 1979. We inherited an assumption that the Government would provide the resources with which the voluntary sector could do things which the government otherwise would be doing. That tide of money ceased. When there was a change of government, there was an expectation--and I must say it tempted noble Lords on these Benches with my inclinations almost to thoughts of disloyalty--that the incoming government would have a different view and that core funding might again become available for the voluntary sector to do things which otherwise government would do. That has not happened except in a few notable cases. I draw your Lordships' attention to that because it is central to the whole of the voluntary sector. The matter needs to be addressed if that sector is not to become moth-eaten and overburdened.
	Finally as regards the young people's advisers, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred to a reconciliation service once the relationship has broken down. Of course, once broken it is difficult to restore. However, it is so precious that if the Government have retreated from their view, they should be encouraged to return to it.
	As regards the legislation, I note that the Minister has no fewer than 13 order-making powers, all of which have been given a good bill of health by the scrutiny committee. However, I believe that two in particular--those in new Sections 23D and 23E--might with advantage be published in draft before we complete our debates on the Bill, and preferably before Committee stage. The new Section 23E relates to regulations concerning the pathway plan and reviews of the same. They are central to the Bill and to the relationship with the adviser.
	Finally, I join the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in asking what on earth all this is going to cost. Not only is there a new duty to be paid for, but certain incomes which young people would receive as benefits will have to be provided by the local authority. Linked to the questions of what it will cost and how it will be met is the question we so often forget to ask in this House. After the "Bill do now pass" debate, we sit back with a sigh of relief and think that we have done a good job, but no one bothers to ask when the legislation will be implemented. The date of the coming into effect of the Bill is connected to the degree of enthusiasm we can show for it. I hope that the Minister will show that it will not be before the resources are available, but it will not be later than 18 months.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady David, drew attention to asylum seekers, who are left out of the Bill. I work with asylum seekers and I hope that the Government will consider what it is like for children who know that their parents are being bombed or who have lost members of their family and do not know whether they are alive or dead. That should come into the Government's consideration of their treatment of asylum seekers, particularly those in such situations. A theme of the debate has been the Government's emphasis on corporate parenting. That is an important principle. But we should remember that these children are extraordinary; they are a selected group, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, pointed out. They have had the worst of times, so in some ways they are unlike our children and need more help and support for a longer period.
	The tenor of this Bill reflects the Government's commitment to the most vulnerable in society. It is widely welcomed by voluntary organisations which interest themselves in the well-being of looked-after children.
	As has been pointed out, currently children are being forced out of care prematurely. They are often unsupported and some 25 per cent become homeless within two years. One quarter of looked-after girls have had a baby by 16 and half are mothers within two years of leaving, compared with one in 25 of the population at that age. The system has failed them and has left a legacy of unhappiness for the next generation.
	In beginning to remedy this, the introduction of more support for longer and of an allocated young person's assistant to oversee that support is most welcome. The pathway plan, a strategy for the future formulated by the young person and his advisers, is also an innovation to be applauded.
	Similar plans are used in foyers for young people who have been homeless. Their use is well-established good practice and has the effect of making clear to the young person his rights and responsibilities. They encourage independence and make clear the help available to achieve it.
	The Bill is a good start in addressing very serious problems, but, in common with the noble Lords, Lord Northbourne and Lord Elton, I feel that it needs to be more realistic. The consultation document, Me, Survive Out There? states:
	"The proposed new arrangements need the trust of young people if they are to work".
	This is indeed true. If children leaving care reject the help of a young person's assistant, it would appear that they are worse off than before. Under this legislation, they would be eligible only for severe hardship benefit--perhaps not even that. Have the Government conducted research into the probable number of the 5,000 or so leaving care each year who will not trust the new arrangements?
	Michael Little, of Dartington's Social Research Unit, in summarising his work for the Department of Health on children in residential care, writes:
	"The starting point has to be the needs of looked after children".
	Have the Government taken sufficient steps to see that they are aware of the particular needs of these children?
	My researches suggest that while the children concerned have been consulted and those who have left care have been involved in informing policy, neither the Government nor the Civil Service have spent time going into a residential home on a regular basis, developing relationships with cared-for children and learning first hand the particular challenges they face. It may not be the custom so to do, but the failures of the system indicate the consequences of those formulating policy being too far removed from the experience of those for whom they legislate.
	I have that experience. I have not worked in residential care, but I have worked in an intermediate treatment centre--an establishment for young people with behavioural problems--and with young people in a psychiatric unit. Many of the young homeless people with whom I have worked during the past year have spent time in care. In addition, I have reflected on my experience and consulted with those who have studied the development of children and sought to heal those who have been damaged.
	Michael Little, in the same summary quoted earlier, writes:
	"Some of society's most damaged young people are placed in residence; including those convicted of grave crimes; and the perpetrators, as well as the victims of sexual abuse. Typical characteristics staff encounter include chaotic behaviour; fear of going to school; a sense of being lost, having no one and no future; offending; inappropriate sexual behaviour".
	Other research finds that 30 per cent of 10 year-olds going into care have clinical depression. Such children are on the horns of a dilemma. Because they lacked parenting, they need a surrogate parent to walk with them on the journey into adulthood. But because they feel they were poorly treated by those who should have cared for them most, they distrust caring adults. Alienated, only time and a crisis may lead them to seek help.
	Therefore, I urge the Government to reach further than the Bill stipulates. As many speakers have said today, there needs to be a clear and explicit commitment to extend the full duty to assess and meet the needs of all care leavers up to and including the age of 21 rather than the age of 18 as provided in the Bill as it stands. Indeed, this is only what the Government were minded to do in their response to the recommendations in Sir William Utting's Children's Safeguards Review. That would recapture some of the lost sheep--those who become disillusioned with premature independence--and realise their need for support. It would also ensure that others do not become lost.
	Not to feel loved by one's parents is not similar to losing one's job, or losing a relative, or missing out on education. An inadequately parented child feels useless and empty. No matter how much that child does right and no matter how kind people are towards that young person, there will be one certainty in his or her mind. He will say to himself, "I am empty and useless. All my achievements are illusions and the kindness of others is misplaced and will not last". There are things to be done about such a state of mind, but its persistence and perversity must not be underestimated. Such young people mature late and may have to go through years of degradation before realising that they need emotional help, training, education and proper accommodation.
	I ask the Government also to consider giving local authorities discretion to assist care leavers beyond the age of 24. A wanderer, drug addict, rough sleeper or criminal may come to realise that he is wasting his life. Local authorities should be able to consider aiding him to return to education, to take up training, to find proper accommodation or to begin a course of counselling. A good parent exists not to prevent a lazy child from taking responsibility for his actions but to welcome a child, however old, who is ready to mend his ways. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, conveyed that point extremely clearly.
	Over the next few months I shall be spending a couple of hours weekly working in a residential home for looked-after children. I should warmly welcome the company of advisers to the Minister and of Members of your Lordships' House. I should so like them to be able to tell me that my concerns are unfounded or to join me in calling for the Government to go even further than they are at present in meeting the real needs of children in care.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, we have had a wide-ranging and, if I may say so, very encouraging debate on the Bill. It has been a real pleasure to debate a piece of legislation where everyone agrees about what we are trying to achieve. That is consistent with the consultation on Me, Survive Out There?, where well over 80 per cent of the responses received supported the overall thrust of the Government's policy. However, since the process of working out the policy there has of course been a great deal of interest in the details of implementation, as we have heard this afternoon.
	I should like first to respond to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who has so much important first-hand knowledge of the experience of vulnerable young people. I fully accept that we must ensure that, as far as possible, we have a system that enables us to engage with people who, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, regard the system and the state very much as "them" and not "us". The noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn, was also much to the point when he talked about young people as the victims of crime and as offenders. He made a connection between young people in such situations and failure at school, exclusion from school, unwanted parenthood and failure to gain employment skills, which links back to the whole issue of support, or lack of it, for so many children in care over the past few years.
	Because the noble Earl raised that point, it is important to stress that the Bill must be seen in the wider context of enabling us to give greater support to those troubled young people. Last year, the Government's response to many of those issues set out a range of practical measures to address the issues originally raised in the Utting report.
	In particular, to tackle the defects of the care system, we established the Quality Protects programme, which was launched in September last year. It is a three-year programme of radical overhaul of children's services which concentrates especially on the public care system and covers all aspects of the service: attitudes, management, standards, service delivery, training and value for money. It sets a series of new objectives for children's services as well as covering the protection of children and suitable secure placements. Its provisions include ensuring that children looked after gain maximum life chances from educational opportunities, health care and social care. Therefore, the Bill must be considered in the context of our overall approach in those areas.
	The noble Earl, Lord Howe, opened his remarks by stressing that, for the programme to work, it is essential that young people have ownership of the process. I agree with him. That is what makes the role of the young person's adviser so crucial. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, particularly stressed that point. It is a crucial role. The young person's advisers will have to give support when it is needed. They will have to ensure that the multi-agency assessment and pathway planning process is comprehensive and properly conducted. They will have to represent the young person's wishes and negotiate an agreed pathway plan between the local authority and the young person.
	One can see that that will be an important and skilled job. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, that such people will be vetted for their suitability. The young person's adviser must be a person whom the young person may trust. They must be committed, readily accessible and prepared for intensive contact with the young person should a crisis arise. I accept the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn, and my noble friend Lady David about the crucial importance of the training and development of those people. I assure noble Lords that we shall be discussing that issue with the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Social Services and issuing guidance to local authorities in that area.
	Furthermore, training and development must be considered also in the context of a Bill that we shall shortly be debating on the development of a general social care council which is in itself designed to raise the professional and training standards for the million-strong social care workforce. A number of questions were asked by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, about where the young person's advisers will come from. Of course some will be directly employed by the local authority from its existing workforce; perhaps from some of its current care-leaver teams. It is worth making the point that, although the performance of local government has been variable, we can--as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, suggested--point to a number of local authorities which have developed extremely good practice as the essential foundations on which we are building our approach.
	However, it might well be of advantage and local authorities may well wish to employ experienced foster parents in such a role. I certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that people from the voluntary sector will be well placed to be appointed to such posts. I assure him that in the guidance that we give to local authorities we shall encourage a diverse approach to the employment of the right people to do the job.
	The noble Earl, Lord Howe, asked whether our guidance would make mention also of the specific needs of disabled young people. I assure him that that will be the case. Many comments were made by noble Lords, particularly by my noble friend Lord Murray, about the issue of troubled young people who run away from local authorities. We perhaps must assume that, even with the new arrangements in place, such young people will find it difficult to keep in touch with the support arrangements that we wish to implement. Clearly, we must ensure that there is emergency provision to pick up such young people and a support system flexible enough to encourage them back on terms which they can accept. I must say to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that I do not have figures on the estimated numbers that I can give to him--it is extremely difficult to calculate--but if I can dig up any more information, I shall certainly do so and write to the noble Earl.
	In relation to emergencies, as I said in my opening remarks, those young people will still be eligible for emergency help from any local authority in whose area they arrive. As happens now, they may turn up at refuges, such as Centrepoint, or at night shelters. The emergency provision should see them through the short time it takes to re-establish contact with the responsible authority.
	Our new arrangements are designed to be as responsive as possible to the young person who is disaffected with his local authority for whatever reason. We believe that those arrangements will make it easier for the young people to remain within the support arrangements. For example, if a young person breaks off the relationship with his local authority, he need do no more than keep in touch with his young person's adviser in order to be supported anywhere in the country. Under this system, money, resources and support truly follow the young person wherever he may be in a way which, I believe, did not happen in the health service.
	The other point I wish to make on this matter is that, as I said earlier, the young person's adviser is crucial. If a young person loses confidence in his adviser, the option and ability exist to change the adviser. I hope that that will be helpful also in overcoming the problem of disengagement.
	That brings us to the issue of the availability of money to young people. I very much accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, that part of the process is to help young people with money management skills. I believe that the pathway plan, with its revisions, allows people to move along that pathway at different speeds. Therefore, some young people will be able to be given a budget and will be independent. Others might start with pocket money but with everything else managed for them. There then might be stages which move the young person along the pathway plan towards independence. On that basis, it is not appropriate to standardise levels of support because the circumstances of each young person will be very different.
	All of that presupposes that local authorities are up to the task. I believe we all accept that there is enormous variation in the performance of local authorities in this area. However, as I said earlier, the foundation on which we are building is that some local authorities have made a very good contribution. In terms of performance management, which is crucial to this issue, the Social Services Inspectorate has a key role to play in monitoring the introduction of new arrangements to the system for the performance assessment of social service authorities. The evaluation of policy will be part of an evaluation package for the Quality Protects programme which is currently being developed. We shall use inspections and research, and we shall scrutinise authorities' reports and their management action plans. At the end of the day, if we are not happy with the performance of local authorities, we can intervene and set targets.
	A number of points were made about the financial arrangements. First, I refer to ring-fencing. I understand the concerns of noble Lords that ring-fencing takes away the discretion of local authorities. However, I believe that that is entirely justified in developing policy such as this. The intention is that ring-fencing will last for one Comprehensive Spending Programme. The Act is expected to come into force in 2001. Therefore, it will last for one year of the current CSR and for another three years. It is a four-year programme. At the end of that period we would expect the ring-fencing element to be taken away. By that time, the system should be up and running and we shall have been able to satisfy ourselves that local authorities are performing in the way we want.
	I have been asked about the figures. I am a little reluctant to say too much because it has been very difficult to estimate the figures. However, essentially we are talking of something in the order of £250 million, £200 million of which will come from the existing budget that local authorities spend in this area; another £30 million from the Quality Protects programme; and we believe that the transfer of funds from DSS will provide another £20 million. Clearly, how we allocate budgets to local authorities will be most important. We are concerned that the allocations will be sensitive to local needs. We shall seek the views of the Local Government Association and other relevant bodies, and we shall be working on this matter over the next few months.
	The noble Earl, Lord Howe, asked about the situation in relation to Scotland. The current law does not allow authorities across the Border to transfer funds. Therefore, the financial regime cannot follow a young person across the Border. But the young person's adviser should still keep in touch. Of course, our hope is that Scotland will legislate in a similar way to us. Certainly, constructive discussions have taken place between the officials of the relevant departments. However, the Bill allows for a transitional arrangement if there is a gap between the enactment of this Bill and any Bill in Scotland.
	Noble Lords asked about the pathway plan and in particular when it will come into play. As the Bill states, it comes into play when the young person reaches the age of 16. However, there is no reason why preparations and discussion cannot take place in the preceding period. I very much take the point of noble Lords who suggest that a long period of preparation is needed so that when the young person reaches 16, the plan does not come as a shock to them; they know what is going to happen; it has been agreed and they have ownership of it.
	So far as concerns keeping in touch, the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and my noble friend Lady David referred to the issue of people moving across the country. We do not believe that that should present a problem. With the definition of a responsible authority, we know that that authority will remain responsible for a young person wherever that young person lives. The authority retains its duties to keep in touch, to carry out the needs assessment, to ensure that the pathway plan is effected, to have a personal adviser in place and to provide the necessary support. I accept that, if someone comes from the North of England to London, there may well be advantages in an arrangement between their local authority and a local authority in London whereby the young person's adviser remains in close contact with that person. There is no reason at all why local authorities should not come to co-operative arrangements to that effect.
	The noble Lord, Lord Laming, asked whether "keeping in touch" was rather too loose and light a term. We regard keeping in touch as being an extremely important responsibility. We shall make it clear to local authorities that keeping in touch should embrace a robust process so that as far as possible we do not allow people to disappear or slip through the net.
	My noble friend Lady David asked a number of points about the 13-week prescribed period to qualify as a relevant or eligible child. The reason for that provision is that we do not want to draw into the new system young people who are looked after as children and who happen to return to care briefly, say, at the age of 16. The new arrangements are intended to help those who need them and not to interfere in the lives of those who settle elsewhere.
	I understand that a number of points in relation to that qualification need to be teased out. No doubt we shall do that in Committee. But we shall try to frame regulations which seek to ensure that people do not slip through the net and, as with other regulations, they will be subject to extensive consultation.
	The issue of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children was raised. Where local authorities take asylum seekers into care, those children will be fully entitled to the benefits of the new arrangements. In addition, under the Children Act, local authorities have a responsibility to provide services for children in need in their area.
	I turn now to the issue of 18 to 21 year-olds. I understand the points being made in that regard. Indeed, the Government have made it clear that they are committed to that principle when funding permits. That remains the situation. We have put in place the legal framework so that, when finances permit, that could be brought into play. However, I must make it clear that, if that were to happen, it would be a top-up on benefit availability, because 18 to 21 year-olds would retain their benefits in contrast with 16 and 17 year-olds, whose benefit entitlement is essentially being transferred from the DSS to the DoH.
	I believe that in the time available, I have answered most of the points raised. If I have missed any, I shall be happy to write to noble Lords. I conclude by saying that this has been an extremely encouraging and constructive debate. I welcome the contributions made by many noble Lords. I know that there are many points of detail which we shall need to debate in Committee but I am encouraged by the support which noble Lords have given to the principles of the Bill. I therefore ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
	On Question, Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Enlargement of the EU: ECC Report

Lord St. John of Bletso: rose to move, That this House takes note of the Report of the European Communities Committee on Enlargement of the EU: Progress and Problems (21st Report, Session 1998-99, HL Paper 118).

Lord St. John of Bletso: My Lords, I am delighted to have this opportunity, at the end of my four-year term as a member of Sub-Committee A, to present to the House this report. I am sad that the chairman of the sub-committee which produced the report, Lord Grenfell, is no longer here to move the Motion himself. I sincerely hope that it will be sooner rather than later that he is suitably elevated back into your Lordships' House to resume the enormous contribution which he has made over the years, both in our committees and in the Chamber. I know I speak for all members of the sub-committee when I pay tribute to his chairmanship, which has enabled us to come to grips with this complex issue in the limited time available and, with no hesitation, to reach a unanimous report.
	While I am obviously sad to be leaving the sub-committee, I wish also to express my sadness that it and the House have lost the wisdom and experience of Lord Ashburton. But on a brighter note, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, who will be the new chairman of the sub-committee.
	The inquiry involved a great deal of hard work by all the members of the sub-committee whose names are listed in Appendix 1. We were ably assisted by our specialist adviser, Jackie Gower, who shared with us a wide expertise on the questions we were examining. I am grateful too for the invaluable support and sound counsel of our Clerk, Dr Elizabeth Hopkins.
	Sub-Committee A first conceived the idea of this inquiry before the Summer Recess. At that time we thought it would be useful to examine the progress of the five central and eastern European countries--the so-called first-wave applicants--which were negotiating to join the European Union. That followed our previous inquiry and report from two years before in November 1997.
	However, the recent announcement on 13th October by the president of the European Commission, Mr Prodi, of the increasing urgency to speed-up the process of enlargement made the subject even more topical than we had originally expected. The day before our first meeting, the Commission published its own report on the progress of all the countries which had applied to become members of the European Union and included its proposals for a significant acceleration of the enlargement process. So, of course, with that in mind, we expanded our inquiry to include those proposals.
	The publication of this report and your Lordships' debate on it today could not be more timely. At the end of this week the Commission's proposals are to be considered by the European Council in Helsinki. We are glad that we were able to produce this report in time to contribute to the debate. Our only regret was that the timescale limited us as to the amount of evidence that we were able to take. Our witnesses are listed in Appendix 2 to the report.
	We had an extremely valuable session with Mr Nikolaus van der Pas, the Commission's Director-General for Enlargement, who has been leading the negotiating team. We heard also the Government's position from the recently appointed Minister for Europe, Keith Vaz. In fact, that was on the ninth day of his holding that post. We heard eloquent presentations from Ministers from the Republics of Hungary, Poland and Slovenia and received welcome written evidence from the Government of the Republic of Estonia. We regretted not being able to cast our net more widely but time simply did not allow that.
	Nevertheless, we believe that we have managed to identify some of the most important points and to express a view on them. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has been generous enough to describe the report as providing,
	"a thoughtful and perceptive analysis of the issues involved in the negotiation and accession process".
	We are grateful to the Government for that and for the Government's own achievement in providing a response to the report in the unavoidably short time between its publication and this debate. I shall mention some of the major points of the Government's response as I take your Lordships through the report, although you will not be surprised to learn that I do not agree with all of them.
	As your Lordships will know, negotiations on accession to the European Union are already under way with five central and eastern European states--the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia--and Cyprus is also included. The Commission now proposes to open negotiations with the other five central and eastern European states--Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia--as well as with Malta. It judges that those countries are ready to start negotiations because they meet the so-called political criteria which were agreed at the 1993 June Copenhagen European Council. That means that those countries are judged to have achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for the protection of minorities. In addition, the Commission believes that those countries have proved their willingness to take the necessary measures towards complying with the Copenhagen economic criteria, which are,
	"the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with the competitive pressure and the market forces within the Union".
	Moreover, the Commission judges that it is ready to move towards taking on the obligations of membership, including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union.
	Our report welcomes the proposal to speed up the enlargement of the European Union. The recent tragic events over the past two years in the Balkans have made it vital to bring in the countries of central and eastern Europe as soon as possible and to send a positive message to countries such as Bulgaria and Romania which have achieved a lot of restructuring but certainly have not gone far enough to meet the European Union's standards.
	As we said in our concluding comments in the summary at paragraph 30, the term "political imperative" is for once not out of place. Peaceful co-existence in Europe is at stake. So we are glad that the Government have been pressing for the process of enlargement to be accelerated. But we caution against raising false hopes and expectations. It is important for the new applicant countries to realise that they will proceed at their own pace and that they will be admitted to membership of the European Union only when they are judged to have satisfied all the criteria. That is not a judgment which will be made simply by the Commission. It will have to be ratified by all the existing member states.
	The standards which are incorporated in the acquis communautaire are high. The applicant countries certainly have much work to do in order to meet them, which, in many cases, will take a long time. We did not think it would be possible or, indeed, sensible to try to agree a fixed timetable for accession negotiations. As our report states, that does not prevent applicant countries from having their own targets. We agree with the Government that these can be a useful spur to activity in applicants' administrations but suggest that they must be seen more as aspirational. The European Union cannot commit itself to allowing countries to join on the basis of a pre-arranged timetable. I certainly agree with the Government's response that it is important in many areas of the acquis to pursue implementation before accession.
	We were also concerned that the first wave applicant countries might be over-optimistic about their target dates for joining. We recognised the enormous efforts those countries are making to transform not only their economies but also their social and political structures. We were particularly struck when the Polish Minister emphasised to us:
	"the people are making the changes, not the Administration and not the Government but the people".
	But we concluded that, however hard those countries tried, they could not realistically hope to achieve everything at once. There was still a lot of work to be done, particularly to develop administrative and judicial capacity so that the new legal framework could be implemented in practice.
	That brings me to the vexed question of what are transition periods. Should applicants be excused from having to meet the full standards of the European Union in the acquis communautaire immediately, or should that be avoided because it would create a two-tier Europe? In paragraph 169 we urged the Government to recognise the dilemma:
	"there is no point in pretending that this question will not arise. Member states must come to grips with the fact that the price of accelerated enlargement may well be the acceptance of what would amount to a two-tier EU membership for several years to come. We think this is a price which the European Union can and should pay, though we emphasise that such a decision should not be allowed to remove the pressure for new Members to play their full part as soon as possible. If they want the right political outcome, governments--including our own--must err on the side of generosity rather than restrictiveness".
	If the process of enlargement is to be accelerated, as the Government say they want, transition periods are bound to be necessary in a number of cases. It is generally recognised that that may be needed in areas such as environmental infrastructure which does not directly affect the single market. But we concluded that they might also be necessary in some other areas directly related to the single market and even in the case of agriculture as a result of the failure of existing member states to face up to the real need for reform. We thought that we had detected, in our initial evidence from the Minister of State for Europe, Keith Vaz, a hardening of the Government's attitude towards allowing transition periods. However, I am glad to note from the Secretary of State's written response to our report that we were wrong and that the Government recognise that transition periods have played a part in every previous accession, including our own.
	I still wonder whether the Government have really come to grips with the difficult choice we pose in our report. I hesitate to use the word "fudge" but it is hard to find a word to describe the conclusion of the Government's response, which states:
	"The acceptance of limited transition periods does not imply a two-tier Europe".
	Your Lordships may consider that much depends on the definition of "limited" and, indeed, "two-tier". In our view, if accession is to be speeded up, the European Union will have to allow realistic transition of quite extensive periods for quite a long time. No doubt the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, will tell us in her reply why the Government do not see that as a problem.
	I have concentrated so far on the work which candidate countries have to do in order to apply for accession. However, there is also an enormous amount of work for existing member states to do. The European Union must make the changes to its policies, financial provisions and structures which are necessary to enable it to accept new members.
	As far as concerns policies, our report is reasonably optimistic. We judge that the decisions taken at the Berlin European Council in March this year on the future of the structure and cohesion funds are accession-friendly. But we say:
	"we remain convinced that more radical reform of the CAP is needed, and we hope--and expect--that the forthcoming WTO negotiations will bring renewed pressure for this".
	We must ensure that enough funding is available to make enlargement possible. The Government assure us that the current arrangements are adequate. We hope that proves to be true. I agree that the own resources ceiling is adequate. However, if the financial perspective turns out to be a constraint in future years, we urge that it should be reviewed so that adequate provision for the costs of enlargement can be made in the annual budget of the European Union.
	Finally, it is essential that we adapt the institutions of the existing European Union to reflect the increase in numbers to the fold. We must be ready to receive new members as soon as they are ready to join. At the very least that will mean making difficult decisions on the size and composition of the Commission, the weighting of votes in the Council and the possible extension of qualified majority voting. The Commission and some member states wish to make other changes at the same time. Our concern is that that should not slow down the enlargement process and we are glad that the Government agree. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that it would be most regrettable if candidate countries had to miss their target dates for accession because the European Union was not ready to receive them. The Government should press for the necessary changes to be made quickly.
	I commend this report to your Lordships' House. It is not one of our most controversial but it deals with one of the most important issues; that is, the need to promote peace in Europe by speeding up the enlargement of the European Union. I beg to move.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, first, I join with the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, in paying my tribute to the work of Sub-Committee A and in particular the chairmanship that it received from Lord Grenfell. I am sure that the whole House shares the regret of the noble Lord, Lord St John, that at the present time we do not have the benefit of Lord Grenfell in this House.
	I can praise the work of the sub-committee without any element of self-congratulation because of my enforced absence from all but one of its hearings. I therefore feel at liberty to say that it produced an excellent report with sound analysis which has been excellently represented to the House today by the noble Lord, Lord St. John.
	Enlargement is a wholly desirable process. One may argue that it is a wholly necessary process in the interests of peace, stability and prosperity in Europe. However, one must qualify that by saying, "but not at any price". Changes need to be put in place within the EU itself, especially concerning the institutional questions. Equally, changes need to be embraced by each applicant country wishing to accede to the Union. Those changes on both sides of the equation are essential preconditions, not merely to enlargement, but to a successful enlargement. For enlargement to happen in an institutionally unreformed European Union, or with the applicants being accepted without fully meeting the Copenhagen criteria, would be a recipe for potential disaster.
	First, in relation to institutional reform, it is already clear that European Union decision making is proving increasingly difficult. Each enlargement, from the original six to the nine, to 10, to 12 and then to 15, brought in its wake greater problems. Decision making was exacerbated to such a degree that more and more relatively simple points are being stored up and referred to European councils for resolution. Each enlargement has meant more bureaucracy, more linguistic problems, more commissioners without real roles, more wielders of the veto, ever more members of the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors without fully meaningful roles. Decision making without institutional reform in a Union of 18 to 20 or possibly more is an unimaginable nightmare.
	The intergovernmental conference processes start with the leftovers from Amsterdam, plus whatever else is agreed. We all know from the report of the former Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Dehaene and his two additional aides, the former German President, Mr Von Weizsaker, and my noble friend Lord Simon, that some ambitions for the IGC go infinitely further than those of the Amsterdam leftovers. Were that great agenda to be the agenda for the IGC, then the framework of time needed for decision making would itself be even greater. But as yet we have no timetable and no agenda; all we have is optimistic assertions of completion by the end of the year 2000 and equally optimistic assertions of full ratification of a new treaty in all member states within a year. There seems to be a surfeit of optimism and a lack of realism in some of those timetables based on the progress that is currently being made.
	I turn to the other side of the equation--the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, referred to both sides--involving the ability of the applicants to meet the imperatives of the Copenhagen criteria. Clearly nothing should be allowed to dilute the imperative of the Copenhagen criteria. It is necessary to remind ourselves of the awesome burden those criteria contain: stability of institutions in each applicant country guaranteeing the rule of law; human rights; and respect for and the protection of minorities. There is an obligation to a functioning market economy with a capacity to cope with market forces and competitive pressures; and an ability to accept the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. That is already set in the Copenhagen criteria as well as the adoption and application of the acquis communautaire which must not only entail formal transposition of European Union law into national law, but also be accompanied by the administrative and judicial capacity properly to implement and enforce such laws.
	This is a monumental task made no easier by loose talk by some of enlargement being completed as early as 2002. We, the European Union, will have done well to complete our tasks by then. The applicants would need to have started the new millennium with miracles to fulfil their obligations. It is not enough to have the sort of incantations to which reference has been made; to talk of political imperative or give injunctions to take leaps of faith. Such phrases cannot be interpreted as either reasons or excuses for dilution of the Copenhagen criteria.
	I turn to an aspect of the enlargement discussion which needs to be more fully addressed and for which at present both sides seem ill prepared. The fight against crime and racketeering and the need for a single market to protect properly its external frontiers is not at present receiving the attention that the problem deserves. A single market is only as strong as its external border is secure. The present European Union has enough problems with the abuse of the European transit system and with smuggling of goods and people.
	Enlargement, to be a success--I do not want it merely to happen; I want it to be a success--needs the active support of our citizens, at least sufficiently to ensure ratification of the intergovernmental conference agreements in all member states. Our citizens will need assurances as regards the security of our borders from several perspectives: migration into the European Union; economic protection of the single market; and certainly concern for our common security and defence interests. The wider the enlargement, the less politically stable some of our new frontier neighbours appear to be. That needs to be addressed with greater urgency than anybody appears to be showing in the discussions at present.
	Enlargement needs to be pursued. Countries freed from totalitarian shackles have a right to see it as part of their destiny. For us it is a vital ingredient to peace, stability and prosperity in Europe. We in the EU must fulfil our duty to prepare, as must each of the applicant countries if they are to accede. Anything less would be to condemn the Union to constant gridlock in decision making in which new member states would neither be able to fulfil their obligations of membership, nor enjoy its benefits.

Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I, too, should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, on introducing this important debate, which, as he pointed out, is most timely in advance of this weekend's European Council summit in Helsinki. I should also like to take this opportunity to congratulate all noble Lords who served on the committee and who produced this comprehensive and insightful report. In particular, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, whose absence I hope is only temporary from your Lordships' House, on his work as chairman of the committee.
	It has been said many times before, but it is none the less true for repetition: enlargement is the historic challenge of our generation. Tonight I intend to focus my remarks on the accession to the European Union by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. We have an opportunity before us to heal the divisions that have scarred our region, to ensure that the whole of Europe reaps the fruits of peace and to construct a durable framework for peace and prosperity, security and stability across the whole continent. Events in the Balkans, in Bosnia and in Kosovo have translated this duty into a political imperative to deliver enlargement, one which rests squarely on the shoulders of today's European leaders.
	The committee's report raises a number of highly pertinent questions on the means by which that enlargement is being delivered. That is not to say that in the past two years, since the Commission published Agenda 2000, which suggested a policy framework for enlargement, important steps have not been taken. Much progress has been made on accession negotiations with the first wave of applicant states. By the end of the Finnish presidency, negotiations on two thirds of the chapters of community law will have been opened with them. But the ultimate decision on whether, and when, these applicants join the European Union depends not only on their readiness to enter, having surmounted all the economic, political and social hurdles demanded of them, but also, and equally importantly, on the readiness of the European Union to receive them, having put in place adequate funding and having completed all the necessary policy and institutional reforms.
	These difficult issues must be addressed and difficult decisions taken as a result. It is critically important that the enlargement train is not derailed because of the failures of existing member states. While each of the candidate countries is making such heroic efforts to get ready for membership, we must show the same commitment to getting the European Union ready for enlargement. We cannot allow the situation to arise in which those countries, whose people have already made great sacrifices and efforts to meet our political and economic criteria, decide to turn their backs on us and this historic opportunity slips through our fingers like sand, intangibly yet irredeemably.
	The opportunity to agree these reforms was missed once before, two years ago at Amsterdam. We cannot afford to miss it again, or future generations will judge us harshly. Given that the Government put the failure of the Amsterdam Treaty to make the European Union's institutions appropriate to an enlarged Community down to the lack of political will among other member states, but not the United Kingdom, and to deadlock in the Council of Ministers as a result of the "intransigence of other partners", what assurances can the Minister offer that the same intransigence will not prevent agreement being reached at next year's IGC?
	That is particularly important given the concerns raised in the report that the,
	"most likely outcome"--
	of the IGC will be that the,
	"pace of enlargement will be constrained by failure to agree on the detail of institutional reform",
	which would be,
	"seriously damaging to the confidence of the applicants".
	In the light of these fears, does the Minister share the optimism of the Minister of State that the European Union will indeed be ready by 2002, given that we heard such confidence and optimism from the Government before in 1997, only to have those hopes dashed?
	In this context, I should like to say a few words about the Helsinki summit due to take place at the end of this week. The agenda for the IGC has yet to be agreed. This, together with agreement to the next major wave of enlargement, is what the summit will determine. This will be one of the most important items under discussion. It is welcome news indeed to hear that obtaining an agenda, which will keep the IGC focused on enlargement and enable it to be completed within a reasonable timeframe, will be one of the Government's strategic objectives for the summit.
	However, the Minister will be aware that the Simon-Dehaene Report recommended a much broader agenda than that agreed at the Cologne European Council in June. I hope that the Minister will concur that any such attempts to broaden the agenda must be resisted. If past experience is anything to go by, these negotiations will prove protracted and difficult enough, without the added risk of a prolonged IGC, which may not be concluded by the end of the year 2000. Therefore, can the Minister give a guarantee that the Government will not allow the agenda to slip beyond the one set at Cologne in June?
	The Government have not yet set out a comprehensive negotiating position for the IGC, but rather than press the Minister, again, for answers today on that subject, I should like an assurance from her that the White Paper the Government intend to issue in advance of the IGC will set out this position. Suffice it to say, I should like to ask the Minister for an assurance that this country will retain its right to nominate two Commissioners, unless and until a satisfactory agreement on reforms to the voting system within the Council is reached, which both increases Britain's voting strength in the Council and which fairly reflects the difference in population between member states.
	One of the aspects of the report that particularly struck me was the sense from the evidence of the Governments of Hungary and Poland in particular that they were isolated from the present running of the European Union. Can the Minister say whether the Government intend to press for observer status for the applicant countries at the IGC, in accordance with the report's recommendation?
	I should now like to turn to the issue of timetabling, which the report examines in some detail. This is particularly apposite in the light of the Commission proposals to open accession negotiations with the remaining central and eastern European applicants. As the report states, these proposals recognise the strong political imperative to accelerate enlargement. That is a welcome acknowledgement. We share the Government's desire to see invitations to start negotiations issued to Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania and Slovakia at Helsinki this weekend. It was also very heartening to read of the strong support among the first wave applicants for the inclusion of other applicants in the negotiations.
	Our experiences in Bosnia, and now Kosovo, have taught us the bitter lesson that the continent of Europe cannot be whole and free as long as its south-east corner is wracked by ethnic tensions and threatened with conflict. To Bulgaria and Romania, applicant countries which border this long-troubled region and which have suffered as a result, we owe a particular obligation to ensure that EU enlargement brings peace, prosperity and stability. I hope that the Minister will agree that this obligation includes the critical need to secure the conditions for the unblocking of the Danube, which continues to be the cause of so much economic hardship in these countries.
	Yet the proposals to open negotiations with the remaining applicant countries highlight the dangers of setting a timetable for accession. If expectations in these countries are not met and negotiations do not proceed as fast as they would like, the twin phantoms of disappointment and false hope are likely to haunt the enlargement project and bedevil it to the point of collapse. In view of the statements made by the President of the Commission, which have varied from suggestions of setting "a firm date" for the accession of those countries best prepared, to the recent recommendation of a
	"target date for the closure of each chapter of negotiations",
	the question of a timetable needs to be clarified.
	However, the committee has concluded that the target dates for accession mentioned by both the Commission and the first wave applicant states are, as we have heard, over-optimistic, and may not fully reflect the difficult work which still lies ahead. To what extent does the Minister share this view?
	The report spends some time considering the matter of transition periods. The question of whether applicants should be allowed to join before they have not only adopted but also implemented the acquis communautaire in its entirety is absolutely fundamental; and the answer is surely dependent on the level of political will among existing member states to accelerate enlargement. For whatever agreement is reached on transition periods will critically affect the realism of target dates and will set a precedent for negotiations with the remaining applicants.
	Does the Minister agree with the committee's conclusion that it seems clear from the evidence it received that,
	"without adequate transition periods very few applicants could accede soon and some would be unable to do so at any time in the foreseeable future"?
	In the light of the concern expressed in the report at the perceived,
	"hardening in the Government's attitude to transition periods"
	which, as it points out, is incompatible with support and enthusiasm for enlargement, what assurances can the Minister give that the Government will maintain a realistic and balanced approach to transition periods and does she agree that it is simply not sensible to pretend that no transition periods will be needed?
	The Government have prided themselves on leading the debate on enlargement and have described themselves as a champion of European Union enlargement. But the Government have already once allowed a difficult decision to be postponed, and put off for tomorrow what they should have done today. However, the forthcoming IGC offers a second chance to put that right. We, from our Benches, will offer the Government every support in securing an agenda for a focused, practical IGC which takes us one important step closer to the milestone of the realisation of this most symbolic and important of enlargements.
	I end by offering an apology that due to a pressing previous engagement I may not be present for the Minister's speech. If that proves to be the case, I know that both the Minister and my noble friend will wind up ably and cogently.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, on the excellent way in which he presented the report. I underline his regret that the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, who has been a marvellous chairman of Sub-Committee A, on which I had the great pleasure to serve for a while, is not able to be present this evening. I share the view that the sooner the noble Lord returns to this House, the better informed will be our debates on Europe. I believe that in many ways the European scrutiny committees are among the best jewels of this House. This report is another example of the high standard of their contribution to debate on the future of the European Union.
	I turn first to the Helsinki agenda. It is clear that the Government have committed themselves to enlargement as their first priority and have recognised that the inescapable consequence of enlargement--as the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said--is the success of the intergovernmental conference on the necessary reform of the existing institutions. Bluntly, one cannot have enlargement without reform of the institutions and it is no good our pretending otherwise.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, it is important also not to lose sight of the fact that enlargement is a major aspiration to complete the reuniting of a deeply divided and troubled continent and to make it peaceful and prosperous. We should never lose sight of that ambition. It is easy to become bogged down in the many complexities of economic integration and legal difficulties. We should not forget what we are trying to do because, as the noble Lords, Lord St John of Bletso and Lord Moynihan, said, it is an ambition for a generation. It is one that we should be proud of because, if we are able to achieve this ambition, there will never be another iron curtain dividing the Continent of Europe.
	However, it is crucial to add that there is something troubling about the way in which the enlargement negotiations have taken place. The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, pointed out--and we all know this--that taking on board virtually the whole of the acquis is extraordinarily difficult for countries that have emerged from years of communist control only in the past decade. It is worth underlining--as the evidence of the witnesses so clearly did--the colossal price we are asking these countries to accept. I give just one example; namely, the probability that up to 40,000 Poles will lose their jobs in a country where unemployment is already much higher than here if the requirement that the steel mills should no longer be subsidised and should be sold off is insisted upon. It may have to be insisted upon, but there must be some understanding of the political fragility that still applies in central and eastern Europe. There must also therefore be some recognition that the transitional period for some of these countries may have to be fairly lengthy, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said.
	I have one other worry about the negotiations which is mentioned in paragraph 154 of the committee's excellent report; namely, that there is not enough dialogue in the negotiations. It is almost as if the acquis is laid down with little discussion of how it might best be handled. That is why I strongly support the radical proposal in the report of Sub-Committee A; namely, that there should be observers at the intergovernmental conference when it takes place at the end of next year. It is simply absurd to exclude from that conference even observers from the countries which are so soon to join the body, for the institutional reforms we embark upon are bound up inescapably with the process of enlargement and how it can be made successful. I do not understand why not listening to those who can explain the difficulties they face will somehow enhance the process of institutional change. We strongly support the provisions of paragraph 154, but we also hope that the dialogue may be conducted in a slightly more understanding way. Reading between the lines of the evidence given by the witnesses, there are clear indications of a certain amount of, as it were, "We are speaking and you will listen but there will not be too much listening the other way".
	As has been pointed out, the enlargement process requires those of us who are member states of the European Union to understand the depth of the changes that we have to make. We have to change the size of the Commission. We have to change qualified majority voting. We have to recognise the necessity for there to be an opening up of the Council of Ministers, for otherwise all our talk of openness and the Copenhagen principles will be seen as not applying to ourselves. We must also recognise that the incredible complexity of the European Union treaties as they have developed has now become the enemy of the democratic accountability and true public involvement that many of us badly want to see.
	We cannot escape facing up to these complexities, only part of which comprises the common agricultural policy. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, will be able to say something in her reply about this morning's rather surprising news that the Prime Minister intends to apply the common agricultural policy to enhance tourism and the environment in this country. Both of those are excellent objectives. She may be able to tell us whether it is a unilateral or collective approach to the common agricultural policy. That is very important for the countries we are talking about today.
	I raise one question with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, who has once again given an extremely thorough and conscientious speech on which I congratulate him. I believe that he is in some difficulty. The leader of the Conservative Party in another place has consistently indicated his opposition to an extension of qualified majority voting. I say to the party of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, that one cannot embark on the institutional changes needed for enlargement, which he rightly recognises as an important and overriding goal, without recognising that his party will find it difficult to accept some of those institutional changes. The way to produce a greater voice for nation states within the process of negotiation and enlargement is to enhance the position of national parliaments in a way which is now being undertaken as regards the proposed charter of human rights rather than trying to set up essentially inescapably shallow and short-lived defences of national sovereignty, for example, by proposing more and more opt-outs which will eventually make the European Union so complex it will no longer work at all.
	I wish to address two other points before I conclude. The first concerns the important issue of the relationship with Turkey. I believe that it would be a very good thing for Turkey eventually to join the European Union. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said about Copenhagen and, even more strongly, about the Luxembourg conditions laid down in the paper called A European Strategy for Turkey. They are very rigorous indeed. We need to try to help Turkey to recognise that some of her problems are perhaps cultural rather than national and at least to see the problem with the Kurds, for example, as having something in common with the linguistic and cultural demands of the people of Wales, where a solution has been found which provides extensive cultural autonomy without compelling the Welsh to abandon either their language or their culture in a manner which they would have found it impossible to carry out. I believe that there are ways in which Turkey can be brought within the ambit of the influence of the European Union and assisted to reach the point where one day she might become a full member. We need to be as helpful and sympathetic as we can. I would like to see as part of the European Union a country with a very great Islamic culture which has contributed hugely to the development of Europe.
	Finally, I refer to the countries along the border. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire will have more to say about that. I declare an interest as president of the Britain-Russia Centre. Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union are feeling increasingly isolated from the mainstream of European policy. As regards Russia, I believe that the outrageous behaviour in Chechnya is not unrelated to a strong sense in Russia of being encircled, being at risk and being under-consulted in the recent developments which have affected her so far from the expansion of NATO to the agreement to establish a pipeline that specifically excludes Russia from its path.
	I conclude with this. It is crucial that those of us who support the development of the European Union and its enlargement recognise the need to begin to establish economic and defence structures which will include Russia in the outer concentric circle of our concerns, including Ukraine, Georgia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union. I plead that because Madeleine Albright has suggested a fairly rapid extension of the European Union to the Ukraine. That does not make sense at this stage. It tells us that we should embark on a long transitional period of association with these countries in order to establish a Europe which goes beyond the continent itself to include its neighbours in new policies that establish and recognise their interests. If we do not do that we might find ourselves establishing a new border in Europe even less porous than the one that has fallen.

Lord Biffen: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, on presenting the Select Committee report and the members of that committee for all the work they put into it. I also echo the sadness that is felt because of the absence of Lord Grenfell, a man vastly experienced in international affairs. I look forward happily to his return to this Chamber.
	I take as my starting point, out of deference to the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, remarks that he made. For a long while he sought to gentrify my views on Europe. It was particularly pleasing to see that he said at page 37:
	"We are all in favour of enlargement in general terms but when it comes to the principles of how do you create a European Union Commission, Council, Parliament that is actually going to work with 26 members we do not really see an end result that is either acceptable to us individually or acceptable to the members generally".
	I thought that that showed an almost delicate conversion to scepticism, but I cannot travel quite that hopefully.
	I offer your Lordships four thoughts on the nature of the present relationship and why they should make us ultra cautious. I am very modest in my choice of terms. First, I do not believe that we should have any illusion about the thrust for enlargement whether it comes from the imperial spirit of the new Europe or from the anxiety of the border states which look to the East and feel uneasy.
	One thing is sure: for all the arguments, Turkey will be a very strong member for enlarged membership. The other Balkan states like Croatia and the rest will be mopped up. I find it fascinating that Armenia wishes to join the European Union. We shall find there is no cordon sanitaire between Russia and the enlarged Europe which will take its frontiers alongside Russia. In that context, I very much agree with what was argued by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams.
	The second point concerns the core structure of Europe and what we have got used to. Whether we have enjoyed it or not, what we have got used to is a highly developed liberal market economy centred around the single market with all the state intervention required to make that effective. That is under the overriding bridge of strict monetary discipline which will be embodied in the ecu.
	Do we suppose that that structure will survive the experience of enlargement? I believe that that is highly unlikely. I do not believe that the structure is going to survive in today's European Union. We have gone through a phase in which liberal economics have been high fashion and I have been delighted to ride that particular fashion. But there is now a growing concern about distributive economics, the Social Chapter and the social obligations of business in a way which would not have been true a few years ago. Of course, they will extend to environmental matters and the issues so graphically addressed at the abortive meeting in Seattle.
	It is not Oskar Lafontaine one should regard with any degree of apprehension concerning the tensions within the European Union; it is the fact that there is a revival of communism in Poland and Hungary, a revival of a situation where the state is expected to resume much of its traditional role; namely, to provide protection against the consequences of economic change, which is the hallmark of economic liberalism. For that reason, I say to the House, "Watch this space". Do not suppose that enlargement will help to reconcile these tensions and difficulties. I suspect that just the reverse will happen.
	I shall dwell for a moment on the actual size of the proposed expansion. Of course, in the past the European Union has expanded on a number of occasions, but this proposal stands alone in numerical terms for a prospective expansion. The expansion will bring in between 60 million and 65 million people in the first wave, which is now underway; 40 million in the second wave which, it has been indicated, will not be far behind the first wave; and finally, in Turkey itself, 60 million. In aggregate terms, that amounts to about 40 per cent of the existing European Union. Do not suppose that those numbers can be absorbed merely by extending the transitional period. Indeed, the transitional arrangements monumentally underplay the significance of the challenges we now face.
	Finally, the difficulties are exacerbated by the difference in living standards. In Appendix 4 of the Select Committee's report, it is shown that, expressed as a percentage of average EU living standards, the Czech Republic has the highest percentage at 60 per cent, then Hungary has 49 per cent and Poland has 39 per cent. I have chosen the three most significant economies. It is staggering to believe that it will be possible to take into Europe's political, economic and social Community nations with such disparate living standards as have been presented. When I examine the detailed figures, I believe that this will be a massive challenge--probably as big a challenge as any free society has had to encompass.
	Of course, there are times when such decisions are made, normally under the threat of external pressure--the threat of war. We do not have that threat now. The quite extraordinary and very welcome situation is that peace has now held sway in Europe for generations. There are no external pressures that require these changes. So I look to see where is the crusading spirit to enable the enlargement to be a success.
	I shall quote again from the report of the Select Committee. When taking a test of opinion about enlargement, the committee found that the average level of support for the applicant states joining was 42 per cent. In the United Kingdom, support was 40 per cent; but others showed significantly lower support: Germany, 38 per cent; and France, 33 per cent. I thought that we were the reluctant Europeans. Now we have a situation where Germany and France are polling less enthusiasm than are we. I do not have to spell out the argument: those countries have assessed the economics of the situation. They have considered who will be signing the cheques. Those countries are making decisions not on a grand view of pan-European peace but on money. That is not a basis for the kind of sacrifices that must be envisaged by enlargement.
	Of course, I wish the Minister and her department well in the negotiations. But I hope that they will not travel too full of hope and that there will not be too much facile optimism in the Foreign Office. At some stage, someone will dust down the print of William Pitt after Austerlitz saying, "Roll up that map" of Europe, because we are at a sea-change in our relationships. We are seeing a future which, despite a veneer of comparability, will be wholly unlike the past. The fear should be that the future will not only itself be abortive, but that it will undermine what success has been achieved in the past.

Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Biffen, in debates on European questions because he speaks with great knowledge and authority, and with a realism that is so lacking in many other contributions to European debates.
	In the broadest sense, what are we being asked to agree to in this report? In its conclusions it contains three propositions. First, the report concludes that enlargement is a good and excellent thing and that we should go for it. Secondly, as I understand it, the report suggests that it will be very difficult to achieve. Yes, it will be, and that fact has not yet been spelt out anything like sufficiently, and that is why I am so pleased to be following the noble Lord, Lord Biffen. Thirdly, it states that this group of, on the whole, pro-Europeans and pro-integrationists, has been driven to the conclusion that, at least for a time, it will be necessary to have a two-tier Europe, if there is to be any enlargement at all.
	That in itself is a good starting point as regards realism. I should now like to address what I believe are the major problems that must be overcome. Some have already been touched upon and I am very glad that that has been done. The first, of course, is the burden being imposed upon the applicant states. My old friend the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, was quite right to refer to the acquis. I believe that the phrase, "ball and chain" was used. Clamp the acquis, in all its magnificence, on to the applicant states and it will be a surprise indeed if they can move forward a single pace. Added to that, we have seen the incredibly bold claims for the Copenhagen criteria, as listed by my noble friend Lord Tomlinson. We should consider those against the background and history of the countries of eastern and central Europe, and in particular the history of the past 50 to 60 years in those regions.
	In a previous debate on enlargement in December 1997, the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, reminded us that it would take the Poles 10 years of expenditure of up to 3 per cent of their GDP simply to conform to the environmental, health and safety standards of the European Union. That burden is enormous and anyone who imagines that it can be imposed in any way other than over a very substantial period of time is frankly deluding himself.
	I have found that in most of the reports on this matter there is a lack of intellectual rigour and no attempt to go to the heart of the matter. "Fudge" was the right word--indeed, I thought it was very kind--that was used to describe the Government's response to the report. I believe their response was far worse than that. It was a flight from reality. When one rehearses with the existing members of the EU what those countries really have to do in order to make enlargement possible, it is immediately obvious just how formidable and in some ways remote is the objective.
	What are those major problems? The principal one is the CAP and I am surprised that it has not been mentioned more frequently in the debate so far. I am not referring to the almost illusory CAP of Agenda 2000 as presented by the Commission and debated in this House two years ago, but to the CAP after President Chirac had had his fling at the Berlin summit when that document was further weakened by his massive amendments. The idea that we can go ahead with the CAP post-Chirac, post-Berlin and pay for it is nonsense. What do we then find? The Government propose that the most expensive part of the CAP should not be offered to the applicant states. They are to be exempted from the guarantee section. How they will then negotiate with the applicant states the other parts of the CAP, I do not know. Will they really subsidise the export of Community food to Poland and these other countries while they refuse to pay them the level that they are paying its own farmers to put food into intervention? That is nonsense and everyone knows it.
	The problem is not only the CAP; it goes much beyond that. Agenda 2000 was also dependent on a GDP growth rate in the European Union of 2.5 per cent per year over the whole period 2000-06. To put it mildly, that looks a very unlikely target to be attained. I have looked at the performance in the past few years of the main states of the European Union. The score goes something like this. In the past six years the French have managed three out of six years over and at 2.5 per cent; the Germans have managed two years out of six at 2.5 per cent growth; the Italians have managed one year out of the six; and the UK has managed about three as well. That does not really suggest that the 2.5 per cent growth rate is likely to be achieved. When you add to that the implications of economic and monetary union and the whole attempt to reduce either the debt/GDP ratio in the case of Italy, and the constraints imposed on Italy to do that, or the 3 per cent GDP borrowing requirement on others, you know perfectly well that deflationary factors will operate in a way that makes that 2.5 per cent growth rate almost impossible. That is the second of the hurdles that will have to be overcome.
	However, that is not the end of the story. Part of the story is that there is not exactly great enthusiasm among the other member states, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Biffen. No, there is not, because, as he rightly said, they will lose something. If there is genuine reform of the CAP, we know who will be the losers. If there is going to be, as there will have to be, a switch of resources from the "poor four", which are doing jolly well, to a new "poor four", which will undoubtedly be there as soon as the applicant states arrive, it is not an attractive proposition for Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal to lose the massive subsidies that they have been receiving because they claim to be the "poor four". A good many vested interests will have to be overcome before we can take it for granted that there is a strong will among the governments, let alone the peoples, of the other countries of the European Union for enlargement.
	Finally, there is the IGC and institutional change. My goodness, I have read, as have other noble Lords, the report of the "three wise men", whom Prodi sponsored. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Simon, is not present because it was a report that probably emboldened Signor Prodi to make the kind of remarks he has made--that it is essential to have qualified majority voting over a vast area and that it should be the absolute rule in the new expanded European Union; and also his remarks about how necessary it is to abolish the veto and the unanimity rule for taxation. Anyone who imagines that that IGC will not be faced by a whole mass of demands from Germany and other countries which want British tax policy to be changed and absorbed into the policies of the European Union is living in Cloud-cuckoo- land.
	I come to the point. Of course it will be very difficult. We have to face that. The only sensible way out for us is to say that there really has to be flexibility if we are to enlarge--and we want to enlarge--and if we want to underpin the democracies of eastern and central Europe. They are poor countries; they do need help; and they need the help that they can get by opening up the European Union in trade terms--in agriculture and other areas--so that they get capital investment as well. They will not be able to live up to those criteria, and not just within a reasonable period of time. They will have to have a long transition period. But for many of them it is absurd to imagine that they will become part of that integrated Europe which is the Franco-German dream. It will not be Charlemagne's Europe again if you add the first six countries, then add the next six, including Romania and Bulgaria, and the further six of what was once the Soviet Union--the union of soviet republics.
	Where does Europe end? The sensible thing now is really to develop those clauses in the Amsterdam treaty which allowed for separate development, to let those who want to go ahead to a tight Union to be free to do so, as the treaty allows, and for the rest of us, particularly the applicant states, to form a separate ring of states which do not share that aim and goal of complete union but wish, on the contrary, to stay self-governing but co-operating in all the areas that really matter for the future of Europe and its prosperity.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I join others in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, for initiating this debate on our report--I was a member of the committee which put together the report; to our chairman Lord Grenfell; to our Clerk, Dr Hopkins, who was of enormous assistance to us; and to our specialist adviser, Jackie Gower.
	As other noble Lords have made clear, the report is timely. When we first set to work on the report we had in mind the Helsinki meeting in December. We had not expected Prodi's statement to the European Parliament on 13th October, but in many ways it was Prodi's statement that set the agenda for our discussions. In his speech to the European Parliament on 13th October, Prodi made two things clear. First, he said that the negotiations with the six applicant states that were already under way--with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus--should proceed as quickly as possible and that there was no question of allowing the timetable to slip to 2005 or beyond, although at that time, in the summer, there had been discussions about the possibility of the timetable slipping. No, Prodi made it quite clear that it was not going to slip.
	Secondly, Prodi said that proposals would be put to the Helsinki summit to open negotiations with the remaining six aspiring applicants--Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta--and that discussions would be opened with Turkey. What was new was the acceptance by the Commission of what is called the "regatta principle": that although the start of the negotiations might be the same for each group of countries, the negotiations would then proceed at their own pace; and each country could enter into its own particular negotiations and wait until those were satisfactorily completed rather than having to wait around for a whole batch of countries to complete their negotiations before they proceeded.
	It is also clear, as has been pointed out frequently during the debate, that the Commission is prepared to be somewhat more flexible than previously in allowing transition arrangements for aspiring countries. The key criteria--the Copenhagen political criteria--remain; namely, that for the start of negotiations there should be stable institutions guaranteeing democracy and the rule of law, respect for human rights, and protection of minority rights. Although no one suggested during the negotiations that the acquis communautaire should be in any sense modified, it was suggested that allowance should possibly be made for longer transition periods than had previously been accepted. That was an important change of stance on the part of the Commission.
	The noble Lord, Lord Biffen, was right to refer to a sea change in relationships. Events in Kosovo were the trigger for the change in stance on the part of the Commission. That was made clear in Prodi's announcement that, if the hard line were pursued, the countries that had made such hard efforts and sacrifices would become disillusioned. Mr van der Pas, director general in charge of enlargement, also made it clear that the situation in the Balkans and the very real sacrifices made by Romania and Bulgaria in that war, and the continuing blockage of the Danube, made it necessary for a "big political gesture" to be made at Helsinki. Although no state would be allowed to begin negotiations until it had met the Copenhagen political criteria, he admitted that, down the line, when it came to the time for accession sometimes a "leap of faith" would have to be made.
	As my noble friend Lady Williams has made clear, we on these Benches were delighted with the new initiative from Prodi. It is vital both that those countries that are more advanced in negotiations and those with which negotiations are yet to start should be made to feel welcome. That was brought home to me last summer when I visited Hungary. I went there to talk about the development of that country's science and technology system. It was my third visit; I had been there in 1991, and again in 1995. On my two earlier visits, I had on the whole been met with gloom and doom. The Hungarians had had to dismantle their huge academies of science, which housed thousands and thousands of people. They had been the source of scientific research, but had been totally isolated from the universities and factories. On the applied side, there were sectoral institutes of research, which fed through the applied technology but were not linked in any way with the factories. Those from the science and technology community whom I visited said to me, "Oh dear, all our scientists are being dismissed. We are doing no research and development now. We shall never be able to put together the capabilities that we had".
	What was so encouraging about my visit during the past year was that, not only was one seeing in the universities the growth of the research base, side by side with graduate and undergraduate teaching, which provides a vibrant research base, but on top of that, large companies, many of them multinationals, were setting up new research laboratories and employing those scientists and engineers who had been dismissed earlier. Perhaps even more significant was that many new small companies were arising in the interstices of the economy, many of them created by those same scientists and engineers. They were indigenous companies, giving back to Hungary what it had had in many senses in the pre-war period; namely, a great vibrancy in its scientific and research community. It is moving back, and will quickly be a major force in our European scientific and technological capabilities.
	So I found an extremely interesting and, on the whole, optimistic scenario. The Hungarians are among those who are most ready to join the new Community. I found it fascinating talking to them about, for example, the range of incentives that they might offer in terms of attempting to establish new firms. They were conscious of the limitations imposed by the Community's state aid regulations. "No, we can't do that", they were saying, "because we are not allowed to by the Community". In that sense, those who have described the acquis as something of a burden are perhaps correct. But it also provides them with a wall against the soft options that were always there under Communism. It is extremely important that they have that wall.
	However, we should not forget the remark of the Polish Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso. He said that it is,
	"the people [who] are making the changes".
	That is very much what I felt during my visit to Hungary. Equally, we must recognise that they share our vision of establishing a successful liberal democracy; and that the benefits are not all one way. The market potential in those countries as they move rapidly towards Western standards of living is substantial. The Polish Government said that,
	"Enlargement is not an act of charity--it is in the self-interest of existing members too".
	We should remember that. Perhaps I may quote my colleague, Alan Mayhew, who is at the University of Sussex. In his evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on European Affairs, he said, that the EU is
	"approaching enlargement in a colonial spirit".
	Perhaps it is trying to hard to squeeze applicants into a "perfect west European mould".
	The question that arises, and has been given a great deal of prominence by the two previous speakers, is whether the West is prepared to make equivalent changes to those that we are seeing in those countries to accommodate enlargement. There are two crucial issues. The first arises in regard to agriculture; namely, the abject failure of part of the European Union to grasp the opportunity of the Berlin Summit last spring to set in train the necessary reforms to the CAP. Now we see what has happened at the WTO. Last week's fiasco in Seattle leaves the timetable for the millennium round very much in question. Some of the new entrants are ready to join, but are we ready to absorb them? Poland has been offered a shoddy compromise in terms of entry to the CAP. It has not been allowed the full benefits of the guarantee system. How can we possibly contemplate taking in Bulgaria or Romania without sorting out that issue?
	Then there is the IGC. As Keith Vaz made clear to us when he came to see us, the Foreign Office wants the IGC to be "short" and "focused". It does not wish to open the full agenda raised by the "three wise men" in their report. It can be short and focused; however, we should be aware that the issues are still substantial: reconstitution of the Commission; discussion of qualified majority voting, with redistribution of votes on the Council; and the whole issue of openness in the Council. Then there is the need to negotiate any package through the European Parliament. These are extraordinarily tricky issues and it is difficult to be confident that we shall be able to handle them in time. I believe that the Foreign Office was extraordinarily complacent to say in its reply that it would,
	"work together with other member states to ensure that sufficient institutional reform takes place to make early enlargement a reality".
	We end our report with a section entitled "Difficult choices". We should not kid ourselves that enlargement is in any way a one-way street in which all the difficult choices must be made by the applicant countries. We ourselves have difficult choices to make and, like the applicant countries, we need to face up to those choices now rather than procrastinate, as we have been inclined to do, and leave them for another day. As we make clear in the report, we believe that the long-term benefits of peace and stability and the prosperity of a reunited Europe are substantial and well worth the short-term sacrifices, but we shall not see them if we shirk these difficult choices.

Lord Cockfield: My Lords, this is a very good report except for one matter to which I shall turn in a moment. The successful enlargement of the European Union to comprise virtually all the countries between the Atlantic and the borders of the former Soviet Union would be the greatest achievement of the 21st century. I find myself in a somewhat difficult position following almost immediately the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney, and my noble friend Lord Biffen. If at some point I appear to agree with them it is simply that I concur with the diagnosis but my view as to what should be done about it is entirely different, and to that I shall turn in a moment.
	If we look at the present situation that we face, the movement towards European integration is essentially politically motivated and driven. Unfortunately, it tends to put on one side what I regard as perhaps the most important issue of all: money. Money may not be the root of all evil (if I may be forgiven for slightly misquoting St. Paul) but it plays a vital part in almost every decision that is taken by governments, or at governmental level. One has only to listen to the debates that take place in this House and down the corridor. Time and again one hears, "Have we got the money? Are we prepared to spend it? Will we spend it on this or that? Should we or somebody else spend it?" If one goes to Europe it is far worse because there people spend money without the direct discipline of having themselves to raise what they are to spend.
	Having said that by way of introduction, the great difference between myself and the noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney, and my noble friend Lord Biffen is that they identify the problems and say that they stop us doing it, whereas I say that they are problems to be solved. I was sent to Brussels. I say "sent" deliberately because I never asked to go, and I was not at all certain that I wanted to go. I was told by my wife that I had to go and therefore I went. That was much more important than any views that might have been held by the then Prime Minister who I shall not name. My remit was to mastermind the single market programme, and as to that I took a fundamentally different view. For 30 years--not 30 days--people had looked at the problem and said that it was too difficult. It was all written in the Treaty of Rome and no one of my generation had invented it.
	I know that I shall be unpopular when I say that in four years the Commission under the leadership of Jacques Delors, with me in direct charge of the programme, made immense strides to establish the single market in Europe. Having played a part in it, that is the one thing for which my own party will occasionally give me at least a margin of credit. That is the approach that we must take to enlargement.
	There is no question that it is immensely difficult. In a way it is a tragedy that the financial aspect has been pushed into the background. Let us for a moment look at that. Throughout the whole life of the Union, as it now is, going right back to its original foundation under the Treaty of Paris of 1952, only four really poor countries have been brought into membership: Ireland (which came in with us), Greece, Spain and Portugal. In the next five to 10 years there was talk of a first wave of six. On Friday and Saturday of this week in Helsinki the six have suddenly become 12. People suggest that Turkey should be added to the list of applicant countries.
	On page 40 of the report one sees figures that show the income per head of each of the applicant countries compared with the European Union as a whole. It is a pity that the average for the applicants is not shown in the report. The average for all the applicant countries other than Turkey is 39 per cent of the European average. If one brings in Turkey that is reduced to 34 per cent. Bear in mind that the original aspiration when the regional funds, social funds and later the structural funds (as they are now called) were brought into play was to bring the poorer member states--incidentally, right at the beginning the poorest member state was Italy followed subsequently by the four who came in--up to 90 per cent of the European average. To contemplate bringing these applicant countries up to 90 per cent is a task of enormous magnitude.
	That is the real issue which must be faced. There are questions about the institutions, the power of the European Parliament and the number of commissioners. Incidentally, it was Mrs Thatcher who proposed to cut the number of commissioners per large member state from two to one, but I shall not embarrass anybody by quoting what happened. It is much better to rely on imagination when one comes to difficult issues.
	All of these were important matters that had not simply been left over from Amsterdam. What was left over from Amsterdam was what had been left over from Maastricht, and in turn what was left over from Maastricht had been left over from the conferences that took place before Maastricht. Therefore, there is a long and well-established tradition of leaving matters if one does not want to face them.
	I do not deny that these are very important issues which must be dealt with. But the overriding task is to reconcile what the existing member states of the European Union are prepared to offer with what the applicant countries believe that they shall receive. At present there is a great chasm between the two, compared with which the Grand Canyon in the United States is little more than a minor crack in the ground. To be absolutely honest, the only people who can face that are the heads of government themselves, and they must also knock their heads together. People say that all of this was dealt with in Agenda 2000. But, quite rightly, as the noble Lord, Lord Shore, said--I do not disagree with his analysis but with what he wants to do about it; he wants to lie down, I want to stand up; that is the only minor difference between us--if one looks at Agenda 2000, they have come along and said that they have reformed the CAP. I have known the CAP for a very long time; every time they reform it the cost goes up--and it will go up again this time.
	Look at what has happened? The fairly modest proposals put forward by the Commission were promptly whittled down by the farmers' lobby, commonly referred to, more politely, as the Agricultural Ministers Council. What the Agricultural Ministers Council agreed was then whittled down by the Berlin summit. The report itself specifically draws attention to that, and I am glad that it does. The same is true of the structural funds. Not enough of significance has been done.
	But these are problems which have got to be identified; which have got to be brought out into the open; and which have got to be solved. I think--I hope I am not quoted in the countries concerned--that it is a grave error of judgment to bring in the second six before the first six are on the point of being launched.
	One of the other tragedies--this is history, I know--is that we have almost got rid of what was originally intended as the stepping stone to Community or Union membership; namely, the European Economic Area. But it is no good going back over such matters.
	There has to be a proper phasing out of these countries. The one good thing that Romano Prodi has said is that, while he wants to get the second wave into negotiations, there will be no question of them all coming in together. When they come in it will have to be when they are right to come in and when they are capable of coming in.
	We now face--not only in this country but in the European Union as a whole--a challenge of enormous dimensions. This country has risen to challenges before and I sincerely hope that this is one to which it will also rise.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, it is an enormous privilege to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, the author of the publication on the single European market, itself the abiding and defining motor and theme of the European Union.
	In commending the 21st Report of your Lordships' Select Committee on European Union enlargement, and in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, on its production, I take the opportunity to enlarge on the benefits of the European Union. After all, why is it that independent countries throughout Europe clamour to join? Except for dissident voices here in the UK, no country wants to leave the European Union. This is a party to which everyone wants to bring a bottle, save those in our own country--some of whom have lost the bottle to fight for an open, democratic and prosperous Europe built on the principle of free and fair trade.
	It is important to reiterate the benefits of access to the world's biggest market; of the admission to a forum of democratic legitimacy; of the strengthening of human rights; and, the most attractive prize of all, of the maintenance of peace within the European Union's borders in our own continent.
	Some commentators forget that 30 years ago countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece laboured under debilitating dictatorships. Nowadays these countries treasure their freedom within the European Union. We should celebrate that fact and the role that the EU played in bringing them in from the cold. The transitional arrangements conferred on the cohesion fund member states should encourage us to repeat such transitional arrangements with these new EU candidates.
	We need look no further than our own British Isles to celebrate the renaissance of Ireland, a success story in part attributable to its beneficial membership of the European Union. Indeed, the European Union has played a significant role--largely overlooked by our domestic media--in preparing the path to peace in Northern Ireland.
	So much for the present. What of the future for EU enlargement? First of all, institutional reform. Next year's IGC will return to unfinished business from Amsterdam. Perhaps solutions will be found to teasers such as how many commissioners each member state can have and balancing qualified majority voting against unanimity and the veto. But one issue neglected since the days of John Major is the democratisation of the European Union, and, in particular, the agreement that national parliaments, in conjunction with the European Parliament, should beef up their scrutiny role of the executive, whether national government or the Commission, to the benefit of the European citizen. Your Lordship's House is already pre-eminent in its oversight of European Union legislation. My hope is that that role can be strengthened and dilated, including reinforced dialogue with the European Parliament, especially now that your Lordships' House is itself in the throes of reform. Imperative in all of this is the necessity of ensuring respect for respective parliaments and of not being seduced into believing that our democratic institutions should be rivals. Perhaps that suggestion could be looked at by an appropriate committee of your Lordships' House.
	Secondly, I take the opportunity to welcome the change of approach--this was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, and others--indicated by the Commission in absorbing the current applicant countries. The previous segregating of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia--the favourite five-a-side team to beat Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and the Slovak Republic--always seemed to me demeaning. Cyprus as plus one and Malta as plus two made us all reach for our plus fours in trying to understand the bunkers laid in the path of applicant countries driving their way round the golf course of qualification for EU membership. The Commission is to be supported in changing course and dealing with each applicant country separately and at its own speed and maturity. Surely, ripeness is all.
	One further plea: it is all too easy to think of these applicants as supplicants; to regard EU states as the professionals in the club house and the candidate countries as novices with overwhelming handicaps still out on the course. Our dialogue with such countries should be two-way; we each can learn from the other. The President of the EBRD, Horst Kohler, recently and rightly suggested that candidate countries have a lot to offer. The transition process has fostered a culture of creativity and entrepreneurship that the European Union would do well to embrace.
	Finally, there is one country left off the invitation list and mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby; that is, Turkey. It is, of course, the case that its human rights record, its treatment of the Kurds and the instability of its democratic process present difficulties in adding it to the candidate list. Its quarrel with Greece over Cyprus and its huge agricultural sector represent further impediments to early entry.
	Nevertheless--I repeat views I held before the recent tragic earthquakes in Turkey--I wonder whether other noble Lords believe, with me, that Turkey has been hard done by. Turkey is, after all, part of the land mass of the continent of Europe. Its different religious and cultural traditions could be seen as broadening Europe's profile, not diminishing it. Its stalwart membership of NATO and its recent rapprochement with Greece should also count to its credit. I hope that the Government can develop further the overtures made to Turkey at the time of the 1997 British presidency.
	Europe should never be afraid of diversity, cultural or otherwise. Indeed, it is a strength and, arguably, the characteristic which sets Europe apart from other global regional areas. We should celebrate that diversity and give it practical expression in the burgeoning process of European enlargement.

Lord Boardman: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, on introducing the debate so clearly and effectively. As a member of the committee, I also pay tribute to the chairmanship of Lord Grenfell--he is missed very much in this House; I hope not for long--and to the Clerk of the committee and the special adviser who were so helpful in preparing the report in a very short time.
	I support enlargement provided--they are large provisos--that it is done at a rational pace and cost and can be brought into effect without being unfair to the other members of the European Union. Subject to that, I share a large number of the reservations expressed by my noble friend Lord Biffen, and the noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney. Like my noble friend Lord Cockfield, when one analyses what is happening, and considers the cash and cost, one has to think again about what we are letting ourselves in for. The admission of 26 countries, all of different structures, and so on, into the Community is a tremendous burden.
	I ask two questions. Does the European Community have the resources to deal with that? Has it the staff? The report refers to the addition of 240 members of staff. I do not know how far that will go between 13 countries.
	There seems to be a suggestion that the applicant countries will have to provide the cash. I have an uneasy feeling that the cash which has to be provided will come from the Community. The pre-accession cash is provided by the Community to help those countries to prepare for entry. I believe that the Community will be required to pay to them out of the CAP and so on funds which those countries believe should match ours.
	I am mindful that the President of the Community spoke of,
	"the chance to create a Europe in which all the peoples of this continent can live together in peace, security, justice, freedom and equality. A democratic Europe where human rights are respected and the rule of law prevails".
	That seems fine. But he then spoke of,
	"an economically integrated Europe which offers growth and prosperity through a single market"--
	I am sure my noble friend, Lord Cockfield, rightly welcomes that, as I do--
	"and a single currency".
	That smacks of creating a federal Europe which many of us would deplore.
	There will be problems among the 13 new applicant nations--the first wave and the second wave. On the cash front, there is the structural and cohesion fund on the one hand; and on the other, the CAP which absorbs roughly half the Community budget. The demands on the structural and cohesion funds will rapidly mount. The new entries will require more and more. But that issue is not as sensitive as the CAP, partly because there is no inter-company trading of the products of the structural and cohesion fund. However, where someone produces wheat with a lot of subsidy, and someone produces another highly subsidised product, it creates competition and dispute between members of the Community.
	I declare an interest as I am a partner in a farm at home with one of my sons. The evidence before the committee was that unless the CAP was reformed, no progress could be made on enlargement of Europe. It was anticipated in October that the World Trade Organisation--it was about to meet--would come forward with proposals which would influence necessary CAP changes. As we know, those talks collapsed. So we are back to the very unsatisfactory Berlin European Council settlement. The noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney, was right to say that it was President Chirac who carved the whole thing up, and carved away the benefits at one stage. But the settlement resulted in no income support being given to the farmers of the applicant countries while the support remained for present members of the European Union. That was clearly not acceptable. Poland made it clear that it was not prepared to be treated as a second-class citizen. That was repeated by a number of potential members. They insist that if they are to join the enlargement of Europe, they should have the same treatment as those already in the Union.
	Slovenia stated that agriculture is not so important in economic terms, but one of the pillars of the Slovenian identity is a great emotional feeling towards agriculture. It does not want to be treated differently from anyone else who joins the European Union.
	One of the directors-general of the European Commission, Mr van der Pas, gave some clear and helpful evidence. He pointed out that one of the grave difficulties relates to the terms proposed in Berlin. He said that we are talking of billions of euros to give the applicants the support that applied in the European Union. He anticipated grave difficulty and was unable to put forward a solution. There seemed to be a general feeling that all will be well: that the CAP, will have money provided for it from some unknown source. All the evidence we heard made it clear that the CAP, in anything like its present shape, would not be acceptable to the applicant countries; and any alteration of the CAP which meant the present members providing more for others to join would be quite unacceptable.
	The Foreign Office expected the WTO round to result in a re-examination of the CAP without which it believed that negotiations on agriculture would be particularly difficult. The table at Appendix 4 of the report, to which my noble friend, Lord Cockfield, referred, shows that employment in agriculture is 42.3 per cent in Turkey and 40 per cent in Romania. It is almost unthinkable that the problem of reducing those figures to a more acceptable level in the economic climate of the EU can be resolved.
	I had hoped that sensible proposals would come forward for the reform of the CAP, but I do not see how that can happen. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referred to the Prime Minister's proposals to reform the CAP. I hate to think how he would seek to impose them on the French, for example, or, come to that, on many a British farmer.
	The problem is that whatever CAP concessions are made to applicants, it is likely to be at the cost of the EU farming and agriculture industry. The French will not stand for anything which affects their interest and stake inagriculture. We have only to read the daily papers to confirm that. The UK farming industry is desperate and cannot afford concessions.
	Therefore, there appears to be stalemate until a reform of the CAP which will satisfy applicants and not inflict damage on present members can be proposed. Enlargement on the right terms and with the cash that is needed--done slowly and not at too rushed a pace--could be good for Europe and the UK, but there are major obstacles to overcome. I was sorry to see that the Government's response to our report did not appear to recognise those or to put forward proposals that would help to overcome the difficulties.

Lord Watson of Richmond: My Lords, the debate and the excellent, lucid, helpful and relevant report on which it is based come at an extraordinary moment in the quickening transformation of the European Union. For those noble Lords who were familiar with eastern Europe before the fall of the wall in Berlin and looked upon that grim edifice from time to time, it is important that we should not lose our sense of wonder at what has happened. This is an extraordinary moment and it befits us in imagination and determination to match it.
	In three days' time, the European Council will meet in Helsinki. The decision on opening negotiations for membership with Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Malta is expected. The second wave thus joins the first. Perhaps the EU is encouraged by the Chinese proverb, "Do not leap a chasm in two jumps"; we have decided to do it in one.
	The challenge of the subsequent negotiations will be daunting in detail and of uncertain duration. But the factis that the EU will embark irreversibly on a course which in the end will vastly extend its frontiers and its potential role in the world. As the Hungarian government expressed it in their memorandum to your Lordships' committee:
	"The European Union will gain in economic and political strength as well as in global influence".
	That at any rate should be our hope and intent and for that reason, as their memorandum argues, this enlargement is ultimately in the common interest of all European nations.
	However, the decision to commit to the second wave enlargement in parallel with the first is not driven by optimism or even by general goodwill. The problem of, let us say, 30 chapters of acquis communautaire is far too demanding for that. No, enlargement is driven by necessity.
	The committee's previous report in 1997 recognised that:
	"Accession to the European Union is widely seen in the countries of the former eastern bloc as an integral part of rejoining the historicculture of Europe to which they belonged before the tide of communism engulfed them".
	Then in a particularly telling phrase it states:
	"It is seen by them as coming home".
	Therefore, this report, published two years later, asserts that after,
	"the recent events in the Balkans, it is now even more important to seize the moment--the term 'political imperative' is for once not out of place".
	The opportunity of enlargement in the first place was brought about by the fall of the wall in Berlin and the connected events. Kosovo, the second key formative, transformational event of the post-communist period, makes it a necessity. The EU cannot stand still. The consolidation of a democratic Europe requires enlargement. That, indeed, is the imperative.
	As we have heard, in practice, this means that of the three Copenhagen criteria for membership--summarised for the committee quite vividly by Mr van der Pas as being, first,the political (the applicant state must be a democracy); secondly, the economic (the applicant state must be able to cope with the competition of the open internal market, what he called "the economic half of European integration"); and, thirdly, that the applicant state must be able to apply the acquis communautaire--only the first must be met for negotiations to begin, while all must be met for negotiations to be concluded.
	That is a bold and clever way forward. It is a response to necessity. It is vital that it does not become a deception. How could that happen? Could the applicant states, both of the first and second waves, be deceived? Finland's Foreign Minister said in a speech to the European Parliament on 1st December:
	"For the enlargement process to advance ... [we must] have the courage to be open and honest to each other and to the applicant countries and their citizens. The Union cannot tell any applicant country the day when it will become a member of the Union".
	Rather, the Foreign Minister argued, the European Union must specify target dates for itself and signal clearly what criteria are to be applied. She then went on to signal clearly to Turkey that it still has a long and difficultroad ahead before fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria. The criterion she plainly had in mind was the political one: democracy and human rights.
	If there is not to be deception in this process, there will indeed have to be clarity. In recent decades, the Turks have felt deceived; the prospect of membership seemingly tantalisingly close, only later to be made much more distant. There could also be inadvertent deception if negotiations on the economic and institutional criteria lose momentum and are allowed to drag on indefinitely. In those circumstance, there would of course be excuses aplenty: the pain to some EU states of CAP reform and the continuing momentum of the acquis. It is worth remembering that EMU is the womb of acquis to come; and behind the detail will be the interest groups which believe enlargement to be a threat or which can be persuaded to see enlargement as a threat because of fears of competition.
	In the United Kingdom we may feel relatively relaxed about the agricultural and low labour-cost competition from the applicant states. However, protectionism has its advocates here also. The fiasco in Seattle was surely a warning to us all that protectionism is alive, well and, in that particular case, kicking. One specific idea has been already mooted here in the United Kingdom. Indeed, it has apparently been adopted as policy by the present leadership of the Conservative Party. That idea certainly carries within it the potential for deception as we face the historic challenge of enlargement.
	It is proposed that, unless other member states agree that further European integration be made optional--a proposal which, in practice, would involve amending the treaties and which, if accepted, must therefore threaten the cohesion of the union--the treaty, which would have to be amended for enlargement, should possibly be vetoed by the United Kingdom. In effect, the proposal is that the EU must either dilute itself into an a la carte concoction; a pick and mix club in which we shall all choose the future rules we like and reject the ones we do not, or the United Kingdom will be ready to veto enlargement.
	Such an idea, were it ever to become the policy of a United Kingdom Government, would of course initiate the unravelling of this country's position in the European Union. However, it would do more than that, deeply damaging to Britain though that would surely be. It would signal a cruel deception that this country has, from the very first moment of opportunity when the Berlin Wall came down, encouraged the hope of applicant states that they would indeed--as this excellent report reminds us--come home to the community of Europe. It would be the worst deception to have encouraged that hope and then to adopt a policy calculated to frustrate it.
	I must confess that I was depressed today to read a report in the press of the speech made yesterday by John Maples, the Shadow Foreign Secretary. It is vivid in its language. It refers to the Prime Minister as,
	"plotting to sell us out by stealth in Europe".
	Mr Maples said that the Prime Minister is going to Helsinki this weekend,
	"to concede, concede, concede ... to bring his dream of a European superstate ever closer. If Europe is going to continue down the integrationist road, the time has come when Britain has to draw a line".
	For many years there has been a soft delusion in the United Kingdom that broadening was an alternative to deepening; that if we could get more members in, we should not have to follow further down the integrationist road. The time for that illusion has run out. If our Union is to be enlarged; if we are to meet the real challenge of the collapse of communism in Europe, we must face the real challenge of building a deeper Europe and not only a broader one.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I trust that your Lordships will forgive me if I continue the somewhat less enthusiastic tone already introduced to the debate by my noble friend Lord Biffen, the noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney, and my noble friend Lord Boardman. Before I do so, I should like to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, and his committee for analysing some of the problems that still stand in the way of enlargement.
	I must say that I find their report rather optimistic as to the possibility that sufficient solutions may be found in time to save the process. I should have thought that there are at least four stumbling blocks which will not be overcome and which have been referred to in varying degrees by other noble Lords this evening. Those stumbling blocks are adequate reform of the common agricultural policy; adequate reform of the structural and cohesion funds; adequate reform of the EU's institutions; and the eventual acceptance by the applicant countries of the acquis communautaire in full. Personally I should not have believed that there was much chance of the existing members letting in new members gradually or on preferential terms.
	So there are reasonable grounds to hope that enlargement will never take place. I believe that that is a very good thing for the continent of Europe and, indeed, for the rest of the planet. It follows that where I find the report wanting is that it simply does not ask the question: is enlargement a good thing? Like its predecessor two years ago, it simply assumes that enlargement is desirable; not only desirable, but very desirable indeed. The expression "political imperative" is even justified and has been repeated by a number of noble Lords this evening.
	The earlier report entitled The Financial Consequences of Enlargement appears to be the basis for that assumption in the present report. It came out with the entirely unsubstantiated and unanalysed statement:
	"Enlargement, if successful, could lead to unparalleled security and stability for the peoples of Europe. If the opportunity is missed there could be a slide towards the tensions and instability which have so disfigured Europe in this century".
	Indeed, similar words are repeated approvingly in the introduction to the present report. Therefore the committee seems to me to have made the basic mistake which is always made by European politicians and Eurocrats who wish to pursue the European dream of the ever-closer union of the peoples of Europe without considering the true eventual cost.
	As Herr Kohl put it some three-and-a-half years ago:
	"European integration is in reality a question of war or peace in the 21st century".
	Or, as M. Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg Prime Minister, put it two years ago when defending the EU's arrogant refusal to tell the nation states what their net payments to the EU's annual budget were--the line being that EU membership was so valuable that it could not be measured in mere vulgar taxpayers' money--
	"How can you put a price on one hour of peace in Europe? The cost of one hour of peace is nowhere attributed in the Budget".
	Those and many similar statements seem to be tacitly accepted by the committee. It seems to accept that the European Union and its enlargement are good for peace in Europe. Indeed, without them, Europe might slide back into war.
	I submit that that position should not be taken for granted. It should be examined dispassionately without the glorious music of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ringing in our ears and perhaps clouding our judgment. One way to start such an examination, as I have mentioned before in your Lordships' House, is to ask two simple questions, which I hope that your Lordships will not find too simple. First, when did a genuine democracy start a war? Secondly, when have forced or premature conglomerations of disparate nations ended in conflict, especially when the ties which bound them unnaturally together were loosened?
	The answer to the first question is, "Hardly ever", and perhaps, although I am not a good enough historian, "Never". The answer to the second question is, "Nearly always". Yugoslavia comes to mind, as do the Caucasus and much of Africa. Therefore, to me the guarantor of peace in Europe is democracy, not the new-fangled and possibly dangerous cocktail of the European Union. If Germany and the other EU countries keep their democracies, they are most unlikely to provoke a war. The same goes for the new democracies in the central and eastern European countries, which of course owe their new-found freedom to NATO and not to the EU. That is the main reason why many of us would prefer to see a Europe of democratic nations trading peacefully together, rather than an unnatural European Union with all the signs of autocracy and corporatism already painted all over it. At the very least, I believe that your Lordships' Select Committee should be objective enough to take a look at this dilemma, which is fundamental to the whole European debate, and reach a reasoned conclusion. Your Lordships' committee should not just take it for granted that the EU and its enlargement will encourage peace in Europe and prevent its slide towards the tensions and instability which have so disfigured Europe this century.
	I come to a second assumption which the committee seems to have taken for granted; that is, that it would in fact be good for the developing economies of Eastern Europe to join the European Union on anything like the terms now being demanded by Brussels. Here again, the report proudly quotes its predecessor:
	"Accession to the European Union is widely seen ... as an integral part of re-joining the historic culture of Europe to which they belonged before the tide of communism engulfed them. It is seen as a coming home".
	Other noble Lords have referred to that--a "coming home". Again, I am not so sure.
	I know that the political classes in the CEECs say that they are keen for their countries to join the European Union, although doubts are starting to emerge even there. They certainly like the subsidies they receive while they are queuing to join, and who can blame them? But doubts are growing more strongly among some of the business communities which are starting to baulk at the prospect of having to meet the acquis in full. That is scarcely surprising. After all, three of the five leading aspirants to EU membership have the most competitive economies in Europe in terms of business costs, and of course the economies of the European Union are among the least competitive in Europe. And there are the Polish farmers, whose dissatisfaction is beginning to surface, if one is to believe "Newsweek" last week. Many other areas of the economy of Europe are beginning to have their doubts, too.
	I should have thought that all that the CEECs really need is defence from NATO and access to the market, which, of course, is denied them. We must not forget the statement of the German who was to have appeared in front of a European committee, quoted by Mr von Ploetz who gave earlier evidence to the committee:
	"Yes, we are for enlargement, but no Polish potatoes--not one Polish potato".
	I am not alone in this view. I have here a serious study which I have recommended to your Lordships before. Indeed, I sent it out as a sort of Christmas present last year to those on the Government Front Bench whose duties take them into or around this subject. I asked them to let me know if they or their civil servants disagreed with its conclusions and why. The study is called A Coming Home--or Poisoned Chalice? It was published 18 months ago by the Centre for Research into Post-Communist Economies and written by the distinguished economist, Mr Bill Jamieson, economics editor of the Sunday Telegraph, and by Dr Helen Szamnely, a well- known expert on Eastern Europe.
	A number of your Lordships may feel--indeed, I am sure that a number of your Lordships do feel--along the lines of, "Well, these are two such raging eurosceptics that their work cannot be worth reading". But this booklet was widely distributed and no one in the Foreign Office or the Treasury, nor anyone with a europhile tendency, has been able to refute the facts contained in it, most of which are shown in easy graphs and pie charts and impeccably sourced.
	Therefore, if the facts are correct, at the very least the question as to whether it really is in the interests of the CEECs to join the EU has to be asked. Here I fear I must be brave enough to take what is only minor issue with something which I believe the noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney, said when he seemed to flirt with the idea that enlargement might underpin democracy in the CEECs. I only venture to disagree because I should have thought that after so many years under the evil boot of communism, the last thing they will do is abandon democracy. But that is, of course, only a view.
	However, after the debate I shall present the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, who I gather is to take over the chairmanship of the Select Committee from the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, with his free copy of this pamphlet.I hope that it can be taken into account in any similar study by his committee in future. I know of no other study undertaken by the other side which points in the other direction. Likewise, I should be happy to oblige any noble Lord in the Chamber with a free copy if he chooses to ask for it.
	I myself go a little further and wonder whether the European Union itself is a good thing, even for its present members. I know that this is somewhat radical thinking in the goldfish bowl of Westminster, when nearly everyone who works here takes the EU for granted and as a long-term and benign fixture. I suppose it is even more difficult for all those who work in Brussels to contemplate redundancy and a Europe unencumbered by the Commission, the Council, the Court and the Parliament. I know that it is not the time to take these thoughts further this evening, but I seem to be among a growing number of people who are coming to see that the Treaty of Rome has spawned a juggernaut which is now out of date, out of control and dangerous. Therefore, I hope that we shall be able to return at some other time to the prospect of a different Europe; of a Europe of democratic nations freely trading in peace together under the protection of NATO. In the meantime, I can only say that I fear it is dangerously naive to assume that enlargement of the European Union is a good thing for the applicant states, for the rest of Europe or for the rest of the world.

Lord Hussey of North Bradley: My Lords, we have had a most interesting and wide-ranging debate on an extremely important subject, enlivened by a series of well informed and pertinent speeches led by the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso. I stand as number 13 in the batting order, in which I may say I feel most comfortable because I performed as number 11 in every single cricket team for which I played. Therefore, I do not intend to detain your Lordships for long.
	I should like to add my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. He was a superb chairman. He numbers among his forebears, poets and field marshals. We saw glimpses of the gentle, persuasive charms of the poet, but we also saw the driving determination of the field marshal. He is much missed for both estimable qualities.
	When we reported on the European Bank, some of us wondered how it would work without in any way disputing the objective. I feel much the same about the new phase of enlargement. There are clearly considerable difficulties which the European Union must face if success is to be achieved. Your Lordships have already heard them outlined. The two most fundamental problems are, first, the necessity of a radical reform of the common agricultural policy; and, secondly, we must feel assured that there will be sufficient funds available to support the accession of the six first-wave states and subsequently the second six.
	I fully support the conclusion of the committee that we go ahead. However, as we state, it is the responsibility of the existing members to ensure that the European Union has the appropriate structures and policies in place to permit enlargement, otherwise, we shall all be in considerable trouble.
	One of the lessons I learned in management was the wisdom of clarifying the potential hazards. We are embarking on an enterprise which embraces all the areas which have been the subject or centre of European wars for the past 1,000 years: Gibraltar, the border between Spain and France, the Low Countries, the Rhine, the Baltic, Vienna, Prague and the Aegean. Perhaps most sensitive is the Bosporus, the trigger point between Europe and Asia. It combines a very large share of the Roman Empire but, thank heaven, not the Middle East nor the northern coast of Africa.
	The European Community is making a tremendous leap of faith in believing that we can weld those historically discordant countries into one single whole. The problems which caused the wars must not be allowed to resurface. The potential not just for peace but also for prosperity is immense. The risks are worth taking but we shall not succeed unless the European Union faces up more realistically to the problems which have already been outlined to your Lordships. The opportunity is there. The existing members of the Community must exercise the courage and wisdom to seize it.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, this has been a constructive debate on an excellent report. In particular, I welcome the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, which emphasised, from the Conservative Benches, the strategic importance of enlargement. That is a view which most of us share. We are talking about consolidating democracy, security and prosperity across the former socialist Europe and about the changes in institutions and policies which the European Union needs to make in order to adjust that. We know very well that those will be painful changes. One reason for talking about timetables and urgency is that it is only by insisting that enlargement must not be delayed that we shall push some of those painful changes through the Community. But that is not the agenda of a European superstate, the sort of things which the Daily Telegraph talks about. I very much hope that the leaders of the Conservative Party in the other place read the constructive speeches which their colleagues here have been making on the subject.
	Of course, this is a question of dual enlargement. We are also engaged in a process--on which this report does not really touch--of the enlargement of NATO. It is extremely important that we co-ordinate EU enlargement and our approach to it with the enlargement of NATO, which is very much under American leadership, and occasionally an American leadership which does not fully understand the differences between enlarging NATO and enlarging the EU. I felt that Madeleine Albright's remarks about including the Ukraine in the European Union were, frankly, unhelpful in current circumstances, just as the remarks from Washington about the ease with which one might absorb Turkey into the European Union are also not very helpful.
	The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, compared the current round of enlargement with previous Mediterranean enlargement. I agree with the report that we must be careful not to make accession more difficult for the new applicants than it was when some of the present member states joined. I remember well Mediterranean enlargement. I was engaged professionally in arguing and writing about it at the time. We were extremely generous to those countries. For those who think that the applicant countries are far too poor to join, I well remember my first visit to Lisbon in 1978. On the plane back, the Greek academic I was with asked why Portugal was applying to join the European Community. He said, "Surely it would be better suited in the Lome Convention". Portugal was an extremely underdeveloped country at that time. There were only two people in Lisbon who began to understand the implications of joining the European Community. Its GDP per head was in the order of 30 per cent or less than the European Community average. If one goes to Lisbon today, one can see what an immense success that has been. One can see how EC membership has consolidated Portuguese democracy and the market economy and has made it a modern state. That is what we must do for the countries of central and eastern Europe and that is what we can do for those countries if we approach the matter with a generous and constructive spirit.
	Transition periods were granted for those countries and, indeed, insisted on in terms of free movement of labour for those countries. Transition periods in the same sense should be offered to the applicants from the east.
	One should also remember that Greece was allowed to join the European Community more quickly than Spain and Portugal, and that one of the tragedies of the process of EU enlargement was that Greece managed to join without a proper domestic debate about the implications and obligations of membership and without the administrative preparation necessary to carry out the obligations of membership. We have suffered from that since then, and in some ways we continue to suffer, in the debate about Cyprus and Greece and Turkey, from a Greek government and a Greek political elite who think that EC membership is a one-way trade and not a set of mutual obligations.
	In the central and eastern European countries, transition is already well under way. The Polish economy has been growing by between 5 and 7 per cent per year for the past three years. That is real economic recovery. I was travelling around those countries working with the Soros Foundation in the early 1990s and I was struck by the rapid transition being made, particularly economically and socially. When I first went to Romania in the winter of 1990, I found it one of the most depressing countries that I had ever visited. Romania is still a long way behind Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic but it is much, much better than it was. The market economy is becoming established; there is beginning to be a certain degree of trust in the government; there have been several democratic elections. That is transition under way.
	The question which we must now consider is at what point in that long transition period do we allow full membership, and how far we are prepared to permit the completion of the transition after formal membership. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will argue vigorously in Helsinki and later that on questions like environmental standards and health and safety standards, where huge investment must be made over a long period, such transition may be allowed after accession and is not insisted on before accession.
	I welcome the signal given to the second group of applicants that they are also to open negotiations. We understand that they will not join at the same time but it was an important gesture of confidence to the states, and in particular Romania and Bulgaria which suffered badly from the events in Bosnia and Kosovo, that they are not to be left outside; that they will follow on in their turn. I welcome also the signals which the Government and the Prime Minister have been making to the small and weak states of south-eastern Europe--Albania, Macedonia and perhaps, in time, also Montenegro and Yugoslavia--that through the Stabilisation Pact, the long-term prospects of membership for them are being opened up.
	The noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney, asked where Europe ends and how much further enlargement may go. I have two questions on that. The first and the more immediate is about Cyprus and Turkey. We have not discussed Cyprus very much during this debate. In some ways, Cyprus is an unexploded bomb in the current enlargement negotiations. I read a report from Brussels last week that the Greek Government are still threatening to veto the whole enlargement process if Cyprus is not allowed in on current terms before the present situation in Cyprus is remedied. We must be extremely careful how we play the whole Cyprus and Turkish dimension.
	I could go on, but need not do so, about a number of problems with the economy in Cyprus. After all, money laundering is one of the most prosperous activities in Nicosia at present.
	The problems with Turkey are similar to those with Greece. If Turkey becomes a candidate, we must ensure that there begins a domestic debate about the implications and obligations of membership, all the way through from human and civil rights to fully democratic government and civil control of the military. As far as I am aware, that debate has not yet really got under way in Ankara. We must think through very carefully the implications of a European Union which has a direct border with Iraq, Iran and Syria. Nicosia is only 200 kilometres away from Beirut and Tel Aviv. That takes us into an extremely large and complex area.
	So we need to develop a strategic approach to the neighbours, to those who will not come in in the foreseeable future. An association pattern which does not imply only dependent status for Ukraine and for Russia is an important part of what we now need to be thinking about. Sadly, I do not yet see any strong indication that Her Majesty's Government or others are yet thinking about it.
	I disagree somewhat with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, about borders. As far as we can, we must avoid drawing the borders of Europe too tightly. I do not want to shut off Western Ukraine from Eastern Poland. That is the demand which the Germans are, in effect, making of the Poles. The trade between Lublin and Lviv is desirable. The exchanges which take place across that border are important. Somehow we must find a way of shaving the gap between the privileged insiders and the excluded outsiders so that Ukraine and others do not feel excluded in the long run. We therefore need an open association approach and an effective common foreign and security policy.
	This is an ambitious agenda. It will be difficult for the European Union to adjust. However, with the greatest respect to noble Lords present, I suggest that jeremiads of the sort we have had from a number of participants in the debate who say, "Woe, woe, it will all be dreadful", and yet offer no answers, are not necessarily the best way forward.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I do not believe he is quite right when he says that we did not have any answers. We have positive, forward-looking answers which do not happen to agree with the views of the noble Lord or the report.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I take that back. Indeed, noble Lords have some idealistic and interesting answers which, I agree, I certainly do not share. So far as I am aware, they are not shared by Her Majesty's Government. I am not even sure that the Conservative leadership fully shares them either. However, I read in the Daily Telegraph, with great interest, the idea that we should join NAFTA.
	How should Her Majesty's Government persuade the reluctant British public and reluctant governments and publics in the other European Union member states that enlargement is a political imperative and a strategic desirability? In the response of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the report, there is an interesting phrase which states:
	"but there is a lack of public engagement with the issue which the Government intends to address".
	I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us a little about how the Government intend to address this. Sending Ministers around northern England in buses is not quite the answer.
	Clearly we need to transform public attitudes in this country and particularly in countries such as France where there is deep resistance to overall enlargement. That will require the Prime Minister to commit time and effort. I regret that he has twice postponed his proposed visit to Warsaw. After all, Poland is the most important country due to come in. That is the sort of matter that we need to think about. We need to remind people in this country of our historic links with Poland; the contribution which Poles in the army and air force made to the defence of Britain during the Second World War. That is the way to make this real. We should perhaps have more in the way of two-way military visits, making the best of what the British Army is doing to help those countries as a way of symbolising that we share a sense of common history and perhaps a common fate.
	I welcomed the Hungarian state visit as one small part of this earlier this year. Perhaps we should be thinking about a Romanian state visit or a succession of them to emphasise to the British public that this region is now part of our world.
	The temptations to delay are very real. There are always pressures from lobbies within the EU not to accept Czech apples or Bulgarian raspberries. Scottish raspberry growers have their own interests. Governments have to impose political imperatives to overcome them. There is a real danger of letting these countries drift into what the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, called an expectation gap, between what they have been led to expect by us over the past 10 years and what we may not perhaps be prepared to give them in the next five years. There are dangers in Poland of a nationalist reaction. My noble friend Lady Williams talked about the nationalist reaction within Russia. That is the sort of thing that we must avoid.
	Enlargement of both the European Union and NATO is an immensely complex exercise. But it should be one of the strategic objectives of British foreign policy and of European foreign policy.

Lord Monson: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, sits down, perhaps I might ask him a question in the light of his perceptive comments about Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. Would he agree that there could realistically be no enlargement of any sort until the EU mends its fences with Turkey? The reason is to be found in paragraph 75 of the report on page 20 in which it is made clear that Greece intends to veto the accession of all other applicant countries if Cyprus is not admitted. Indeed, as the noble Lord stated, that was reconfirmed to him when he visited Brussels last week.
	However, under the terms of the 1959 Zurich and London Accords ratified by a solemn and binding treaty in 1960, which is still in force, Cyprus cannot join the EU without Turkey's permission. That permission will not be granted unless Turkey is admitted.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I share many of the views expressed by the noble Lord. There is a real danger of Greek blackmail, to put it bluntly. It is important that we avoid getting into a situation in which the Greeks are as successful in bouncing the European Union on Cypriot entry as they were in Corfu some years ago in bouncing other member states, including the then British Conservative Government, into putting Cyprus and Malta at the top of the list of candidates. I very much hope that the British Government are aware of such dangers.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I too, thank the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, for introducing the debate so admirably. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell and his committee on this excellent report. It is a great loss to the House that we no longer have the benefit of the wisdom of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. To my mind, that shows the folly of the Government in excluding the experience and good sense of so many hereditary Peers from this House, even if it is for only a short while.
	The report makes most informative and interesting reading. It will no doubt be highly respected by all the people concerned, as reports from the House of Lords always are. This superb debate has been colourful, lively and in many ways very serious, with important contributions. I hope I shall be forgiven if at this late hour I do not go into many details or mention all the speakers.
	Many say that enlargement is as important to the European Union as are the social security reforms to the home agenda. The committee's support for accession and negotiations with Bulgaria and Romania to be given high priority at Helsinki this weekend is to be welcomed. This is especially so in the case of Bulgaria after its unstinted support for NATO during the Kosovo war, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso. We owe support to these former Iron Curtain countries.
	During my last session in the European Parliament in May 1994, our final task was to ratify the previous enlargement with Austria, Sweden and Finland. That was one of the few responsibilities or competencies, as it is known in the jargon, of the European Parliament. Alas, there is no record of the debate as there is no Hansard from the committees. We debated deep into the night, much the same debate as we are having here tonight in your Lordships' House. One group of members was determined to have the three countries join as soon as possible. Others felt that if we did not make the necessary institutional changes to cope with these three new members it would be a mistake and we would have failed in our duties. It was a narrow vote which was then mirrored later in the plenary. The world's press was waiting outside and it was headline news everywhere. The rest is history and we have now moved to another phase.
	We are now looking at enlargement to a number of applicant countries with borders that will run to the old Soviet Union. The result will be a very different mixture of national traditions and of richer and poorer countries. Over 100 million people have asked to join the European Union, which will eventually have almost 500 million people, twice as many as the United States and three times as many as Russia, as we heard in the eloquent speech of my noble friend Lord Biffen.
	As Mr Archie Norman said so forcefully in the other place last week,
	"The first challenge is creating a EU that can allow for flexibility to accommodate a much more diverse group of member states".
	As is recommended in item 62 of the report,
	"the procedure for flexibility laid down in the treaty should be simplified".
	I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that the regatta idea needs looking at.
	Ten years ago Europe was agog with the fall of the Berlin Wall and, with it, the end of a decade of a Europe divided by dictatorship and despair. We British Conservatives were among the first to raise our arms in welcoming the former communist countries back to where they belong. I was privileged to have been able to campaign in several countries and to act as an official observer in others. It was a moving experience that I shall never forget. Both John Major and Margaret Thatcher realised the importance of not hesitating about enlargement. Banishing our lost allies once again into the political and economic wilderness would have been madness. They saw that that would be wrong morally, politically and economically. Based on the principle of democracy, fraternity and the need to heal the deep scars left by the communist era, enlargement would unite a continent that historically and culturally--as we heard this evening--should be one.
	So where are we today, 10 years on? With all the celebrations that we had last month, the answer is: not as far as we should be. As item 31 spells out so clearly, the harsh reality is that not a single of the new democracies of eastern and central Europe is a member of the European Union. Was perhaps enlargement a misguided ambition and one we should abandon, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Pearson? I am afraid he will not be surprised that I disagree with him once again.
	I would argue that enlargement was definitely not a misguided ambition; an emphatic no. Much as we may say we want enlargement, it cannot happen without reforming the European Union and, in particular, its institutions. By and large, Amsterdam failed to prepare the institutions for enlargement. Unless the institutions are right, the policies will never be right. Moreover, would it not be fairer to settle the institutions first so that the applicant countries know what the club rules were before they join?
	There are several challenges before enlargement can take place that are spelt out clearly in the report. First, there is the need to reform the common agricultural policy. Secondly, there is the need to reform the structural and regional funds; and, thirdly, there is the need to streamline the institutions of the European Union, including the re-weighting of votes in the Council. On the last matter, it is understood by the nation states that most tax and foreign policy will stay national responsibilities. That must be right. It is an interesting reflection on how nervously the 15 are proceeding towards the federal superstate featured in the Eurosceptic nightmare. In most federations, foreign and fiscal policies are the first to be centralised.
	As my noble friend Lord Moynihan explained so clearly, and as Mr. Archie Norman too stressed in the other place, the importance of paying for enlargement has not been taken seriously enough. From my noble friend Lord Cockfield we heard of the importance of money in the European Union and the success of the Single European Act. That was an undoubted success upon which I as one Conservative salute him. A partnership is needed, with the European Union helping applicants to prepare.
	Over recent years, the European Union has mobilised more support for the former eastern bloc countries than the United States put into Europe under the Marshall Plan. I fear that enlargement will require even more money than the Commission estimates. However, it is imperative that the European Union stays within its own resource ceiling of 1.27 per cent of the European Union GDP.
	The proposals for the structural and cohesion fund also appear unsatisfactory. The criteria for distributing the overall allocations appear to be fundamentally flawed. The main purpose of the fund is to reduce the disparities within the Union. We should not fear Europe but, like the other members, make sure it works for us. We should not fear enlargement, but make it profitable for the whole Union. We must not fear reform. If the Union does not grow to encompass all the applicant states when they meet the necessary criteria, we shall have failed to provide for the future security and stability of the whole continent. It has been said that,
	"getting enlargement right is the single greatest challenge, and potentially the most rewarding one, that the European Union will ever encounter".
	Those are not my words; they are the words of the Economist.
	Extending peace and prosperity, free trade and rule of law elsewhere in Europe touches on the very foundations of Conservative beliefs and ambitions. But it cannot happen overnight. It takes time to change. Think how long it took for us to conform to the single market legislation; time, work and commitment. Now think how long it takes a former communist dictatorship to become a real democracy with a real, liberal economy. All the applicant countries will somehow have to conform to the acquis. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, explained so well the difficulty of that.
	It would be wrong to lay the blame for the lack of progress on enlargement on those aspirant countries sitting outside the European Union--Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia. After all, it is they who are knocking on our door. Is the real problem the lack of will inside that we heard of from my noble friend Lord Biffen and the noble Lord, Lord Shore? Has Europe really got cold feet? In a way it has, but it is a socialist-run Europe that has cold feet. It is clear that enlargement has been put on the back burner by socialist governments whose priorities are not our priorities. The fact is that enlargement simply frightens the left-wingers; after all, it emphasises all those values with which they are least comfortable.
	For us, enlargement means an outward looking Europe that will encourage free trade across the continent; it is one which will deliver wider markets and more prosperity. Theirs is an inward-looking, defensive agenda, where safeguarding the rights of workers with a raft of expensive, social legislation is the priority, above the future of the rest of the people of Europe. Today we had another example of a damaging piece of legislation, the levy of droit de suite, which looks as though it is about to be agreed.
	We do not see enlargement as a threat, but as an opportunity. Unfortunately, we are not running the summit agenda. Thirteen of the 15 governments in Europe are socialist. Enlargement was postponed at Amsterdam and key issues surrounding its future were never discussed.
	Outlined in Agenda 2000 was the absolute need to reform the common agricultural policy and the structural fund. The European Union has been slow in developing these proposals. It is doubtful whether they amount to a coherent strategy. We all agree that the European Union must change if it is to accommodate such a massive expansion of membership. How can Spain and Poland fit into the common agricultural policy? The answer is that they cannot; that is, not into the CAP which we know today.
	If the mould cannot expand, why not look for a new one? This goes for policy, as well as institutional questions. It is clear that what works well for 12 and then 15 countries is unlikely to work for 25 countries. We all agree on this point. But how do we solve one of the many problems set out in the report?
	Some in the present European Union say that we must unite still further; or, indeed, deepen, if you like to use the old jargon. Then, from this united, strengthened position, the Union will be able to cope with expansion. However, we believe that we must also look for more imaginative and flexible ways to accommodate more members. It remains a policy to which we have always been committed. Flexibility for us has always gone hand in hand with enlargement. We must remember that we have welcomed each enlargement in the European Union. Today, we cannot imagine a European Union without Portugal or Spain--countries which were under dictatorships this century, right-wing ones on that occasion.
	If we give up on enlargement, we shall have turned our back on our principles and on support and encouragement for the applicant countries. This would be a disaster. Enlargement should be hugely beneficial for everyone and remains, I believe, our historic obligation.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, I wonder whether she could clarify the confusion in my mind as a result of her remarks. She said that she regarded the single market as a great achievement; indeed, one of the greatest achievements of the Conservative Party, and so on, in Europe. But later she castigated--and rightly so--the droit de suite legislation, which is contributing to the destruction of our extremely important international art market.
	My noble friend might also have mentioned another current directive--the take-over directive--which is in the process of destroying our mergers and acquisitions industry in the City of London. My noble friend is surely aware that these two directives come straight from the single market: they are single market legislation with qualified majority voting. Can she tell us, briefly, what advantages she sees in the single market that we could not have had from the common market?

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, my noble friend mentioned two pieces of legislation. Unfortunately, all is not perfect even in the best of all possible worlds. When I was in the European Parliament, there was much legislation with which we did not agree and which we did not like; but we were in opposition and were voted down every time. As long as there is the possibility of being voted down, pieces of legislation that I would consider as not being free market--indeed, not reflecting the original idea that my noble friend Lord Cockfield had in the Single European Act--are those that we would not pass.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I, too, want to pay tribute to the work of the members and staff of the sub-committee, many of whom we were privileged to hear from this evening. In particular, I am mindful that it was the last report presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, before his departure from this House. The report displays all the expertise and careful scrutiny that this House came to expect from the sub-committee during the noble Lord's tenure as its chairman. He will be a hard act to follow. However, as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, so ably demonstrated, I am sure that the committee will none the less continue to show a deep and perceptive interest in the Government's dealings within the European Union. I am confident that my noble friend Lord Tomlinson will be more than able to meet the challenge as chairman.
	Perhaps I may say straight away that the Government welcome the report; and not just because we have identical views on the significance of enlargement. The report was undertaken because of the committee's concern that the enlargement process might be slowing down. I hope that the evidence taken by the committee has demonstrated that this is not the case. This is not by any means to say that the Government are complacent about enlargement. On the contrary, the United Kingdom has long played a leading and constructive role in EU enlargement. The Prime Minister galvanised the process in May when he called for the Helsinki European Council meeting to invite six more countries--Latvia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Malta--to begin negotiations. I am confident that this weekend the Council will now do so.
	Perhaps I may reassure the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that the Prime Minister has committed both time and effort to this issue. Indeed, if one were to listen to some elements of the media, he concentrates on nothing else.
	As the Government's response to the report recognises, an information and media strategy on enlargement is necessary, especially as negotiations near their close. This is necessary both in member states and in acceding states. The UK has a role to play in this. I am pleased to say that the Prime Minister has written an article for the press for publication this week about the six countries that are joining negotiations in the new year. The article emphasises the support of Her Majesty's Government for enlargement and the welcome that awaits their countries in the European Union.
	In emphasising the importance of enlargement, the committee's report says--I do not hesitate to quote this, although it has been mentioned by other speakers:
	"We have consistently supported enlargement of the European Union to bring in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe since it first became possible as a result of the political changes in those States. We believe that after the recent events in the Balkans it is now even more important to seize the moment--the term 'political imperative' is, for once, not out of place".
	I could not agree more. I very much wish to welcome the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about the importance of using enlargement as an opportunity to heal the divisions and reap the fruits of peace. Coming from Opposition Benches, those were indeed welcome words. The pledge made of the Loyal Opposition's support for enlargement, echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, was also warming to this side of the House; indeed, I dare say, to all sides of the House.
	I am most grateful for the sage good sense of the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, who has such a comprehensive command of the historical challenges with which we have all had to grapple over the past 30 years. I very much welcome his endorsement: I believe he referred to the same diagnosis but a different remedy.
	We will continue to maintain the pressure for enlargement. Enlargement is not only good for the applicant and member states; it is also good for the future of the European Union. In inviting new states to join the EU, we offer these countries the prospect of political stability and economic growth that we in Western Europe have enjoyed for many decades. I cannot but agree with my noble friends Lord Harrison and Lord Tomlinson, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and many other speakers who emphasised the benefits of enlargement in terms of the enhancement of stability and prosperity in Europe.
	Promoting enlargement is a policy with a clear ethical dimension. We have all witnessed the terrible suffering and injustice that have taken place in the former Yugoslavia. We are all aware that Turkey still does not meet the Copenhagen criteria for membership in areas such as human rights and its treatment of minorities. Even some of the applicant countries only recently met these Copenhagen political criteria. The prospect of EU accession is a clear catalyst for political and social change. We are bringing countries that used to lie behind the Iron Curtain fully into the political, economic and cultural life of the European Union. It is the most important policy that the EU could pursue. I am glad to say that it is being pursued vigorously and that the United Kingdom is at the forefront of this process. The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, need have no fear that the Copenhagen criteria will be diluted. Adherence to their principles secures the goals that we all seek. Neither shall we shirk from the difficult choices, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, fears.
	It would not surprise any close observer of the proceedings of this House to note that noble Lords have identified with their usual acuity the most complex issues facing us in the enlargement process. The noble Lords, Lord St. John of Bletso and Lord Moynihan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and, for different reasons, the noble Lord, Lord Biffen, have emphasised the committee's concerns about transitional periods. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Shore, raised the related issue of transitional arrangements in agricultural markets, together with the noble Lords, Lord Boardman and Lord Hussey, just to mention two others, and particularly the reform of the common agricultural policy.
	A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, mentioned concerns about the impact of Turkey's candidacy. The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, highlighted the many questions of institutional reform which arise directly out of the enlargement process and asked whether there are funds available to enable enlargement to be successful. It will come as little surprise to anyone who has been involved in the European debate to note that the noble Lords, Lord Biffen, Lord Pearson and Lord Shore, suggested that we were on a hiding to nothing, that disaster faced us and that the dangers of enlargement were so great as to give us pause for thought that it might never happen.
	I should deal with the one area where we do not entirely share the committee's opinion. The committee's sense that the Government have hardened their stance on the issue of transition periods for the implementation in full of the EU acquis communautaire is unfounded. I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, was able, on behalf of the committee, to accept that it was wrong in that regard. It is clearly desirable that new member states should implement the acquis in full as soon as they join. We shall continue to urge them to do so. But we subscribe to the common EU negotiating position which allows that in certain circumstances transition periods may be necessary. It makes clear that,
	"Such requests for any transitional measures shall be limited in time and scope, and accompanied by a plan with clearly defined stages for application of the acquis".
	The United Kingdom has agreed this mandate and will continue to adhere to it. This means that we shall look sympathetically at requests for time-bound transitional periods where a sensible case can be made.
	I respond to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso. As the noble Lord recognised, transitional periods played an important part in all previous accessions. They are a tried and trusted means of integrating new member states into European Union policies in an orderly fashion, but in no previous accession did this lead to a two-tier Europe. New member states have always played a full role in decision-making in the European Union from the moment they joined. This applied as much to areas where the new members enjoyed transitional periods as to policies where they took on board the full acquis from day one. While I concede that there may be areas of policy where the applicants will not implement EU legislation in full for a temporary period, I do not think that this amounts to a two-tier Europe. After all, we do not want to imply that what is on offer is some kind of second-class citizenship.
	I respond to a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby. She mentioned the important issue of the impact of enlargement on industry in applicant countries. The objective of enlargement is to extend prosperity to the acceding countries, not impoverish them. That is why the Copenhagen economic criteria which applicants must meet by accession include the ability to cope with the competitive pressures of the single market. Of course once they have acceded, the applicants will have access to the European Union structural funds. These are precisely designed to help countries cope with the social and economic pressures arising from the need for industrial restructuring. This is in addition to the substantial pre-accession aid that the applicants will receive.
	The noble Lords, Lord Shore and Lord Boardman, among others, expressed acute concern at the common agricultural policy. The Berlin European Council agreed important reforms to the common agricultural policy. EU farm support prices were reduced, bringing them closer to levels in the applicant countries. This will make accession easier. Berlin also set aside funds to finance the common agricultural policy in the new member states. The funds will finance the common agricultural policy market support measures such as intervention and export subsidies. But no provision was made for direct payments for their farmers. Instead the EU decided to focus its aid on promoting structural adjustment in the applicant countries, including in the environmental area, rather than on paying subsidies to their farmers. Berlin set aside substantial structural funds for the new member states. By the year 2006 these would be worth 12 billion euro a year. That is roughly equivalent to 4 per cent of the combined GNP of the six countries currently in negotiations.
	The Government believe that further common agricultural policy reform is highly desirable and will continue to argue the case strongly. I understand the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, and others with regard to the World Trade Organisation negotiations. Despite the absence of an agreement at Seattle last week to launch a comprehensive round of trade negotiations, negotiations on agricultural liberalisation will begin under WTO auspices in January next year.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Before she leaves the subject of agriculture will she respond to a question that I asked about the statement made on behalf of the Prime Minister that was reported in the press today to the effect that agricultural subsidies would be redirected to environmental development and tourism? Is that specifically a British initiative or an EU one, as that was not too clear in the reports?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I confirm that the rural development component of the common agricultural policy which will extend to the new member states includes provisions for funding environmental development and tourism. That is not a unilateral policy but one common to the EU as a whole.
	As I said, negotiations on agricultural liberalisation will add to the pressure for further reform of the common agricultural policy. We expect a further round of reforms to be agreed before the Berlin financial perspective ends in 2006. This might help the enlargement process. But there is no reason why an absence of further reform should delay enlargement assuming sensible transitional arrangements can be devised.
	The committee's report contains an excellent account of the history and progress of this round of enlargement. As outlined by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, in opening this debate, noble Lords will be aware that the accession process was launched on 30th March 1998 under the UK presidency. Accession negotiations with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia then opened on 31st March 1998. Twenty-three of the 31 chapters for negotiation have been opened and the latest one, the environment, at today's accession conference in Brussels. The Portuguese presidency expects to finish opening the eight remaining chapters during its tenure in the first half of next year.
	The noble Lord, Lord Watson, rightly concentrated on the need for openness and honesty in the implementation of the process. I can assure the noble Lord that Her Majesty's Government are firmly committed to promoting both those elements.
	Noble Lords will be aware that there is no formal timetable for negotiation. It is difficult to set a timetable for completion of negotiations at this stage. I very much welcomed the comments made about that issue. Indeed, to set a timetable might risk raising false hopes oreven demotivating the applicants. After further progress in negotiations we should be prepared to consider a target for their conclusion. It is true that applicants use their own target dates such as 2002 and 2003 to motivate the reform process at home. Although they are ambitious we hope that the applicants will come close to understanding the realities that face them and also come close to meeting them. The faster the applicants prepare themselves for accession and the implementation of the acquis communautaire, the faster they can join. The coincidence of the EU's own proposed target dates for institutional reform in about 2002, which the Government support, is a welcome one.
	At this stage it is realistic for both sides in the negotiations to be working towards their own readiness in anticipation of what we hope will be a swift enlargement process. There is widespread agreement among member states that differentiation should be a hallmark of negotiations in future. It is important that each applicant should be considered on its own merits.
	It is logical to expect some countries to make progress faster than others, but it is important that all applicants keep moving towards membership, reforming their economies and raising their administrative standards. Both the European Union and the applicant states themselves recognise the vital importance of ensuring strong, external borders after accession. That will require substantial preparation and, in some cases, major investment. The European Union has made this a priority area for pre-accession aid under the European Union's PHARE programme. I agree with noble Lords and in particular with the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, who raised the issue, that this is an area in which we need to remain vigilant.
	The Commission's annual progress reports on the candidate countries published in October showed that they have all made progress in the last year. All 12 countries which are or which will soon be in negotiation meet the Copenhagen political criteria. Indeed, it is on that basis that they are negotiating to join the EU. There has also been real progress towards meeting the challenging Copenhagen economic criteria. I agree wholeheartedly with all noble Lords who outlined the benefits which flow from such accession. I accept entirely that it is an important consideration.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, raised the issue of Russia, Ukraine and the other countries. There are historic economic links between the people of these countries with several of the countries in the accession process. Clearly, these are areas that will be discussed in the accession negotiations. I can assure the noble Baroness that we shall be pressing for imaginative solutions to these issues to help ensure that enlargement does not have a divisive effect on the region as a whole.
	I turn to Turkey, which was a subject raised by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Biffen. It is clear that denying candidate status to Turkey in Helsinki while inviting others to open accession negotiations would severely damage EU-Turkey relations. By offering the prospect of membership we give Turkey a clear incentive to act on human rights; we help to improve Greece-Turkey relations; and we provide support for a political settlement in Cyprus. I feel sure that noble Lords will agree that these are all laudable aims.
	As regards Cyprus in particular, the EU's objective is accession following a political settlement on a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal Cyprus. Settlement is not for us a pre-condition of accession, but clearly it would be easier for a reunited Cyprus to join the EU. We are working hard for a settlement. We warmly welcomed the acceptance by the parties of the invitation of the United Nations Secretary General to settlement talks in New York on 3rd December.
	Enlargement is not just about the applicant countries preparing to join the European Union. It is also about member states preparing to receive them. We took the first step at the Berlin Summit in March which agreed policy reforms of the common agricultural policy financing arrangements and of structural spending. The task is now institutional reform. We want EU institutions that are effective, transparent, democratic and ready to face the challenge of enlargement. If they are to become so, there is clearly a need for more change. That is why we embrace the opportunity provided by the intergovernmental conference. To block progress now as some may suggest--or, one would almost believe, is wanted by the noble Lord, Lord Shore--could only hold back both the reform process and enlargement itself.

Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Baroness giving way. I find her brief extraordinarily unrealistic. Having listened to the debate I cannot really believe that she feels her reply is adequate. I put to the noble Baroness that it is no good misrepresenting my position. I would very much like enlargement--that is to say, bringing in the countries of eastern and central Europe. I would welcome that even more than my noble friend because I believe that their presence within the European Union would put an end to the Franco-German nightmare of a really integrated single European state.

Noble Lords: Hear, hear!

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I certainly had no intention of misrepresenting the views of the noble Lords. I say very clearly that I believe what we are doing is realistic as regards enlargement. It is essential for the peace and stability of Europe. It is right and well ordered.
	I say straight away that being positive does not mean that we are starry eyed. We will defend Britain's interests as every other member state will defend its own. But we are quite clear that Britain's interests are best served by successful enlargement backed up by an effective and transparent institutional structure.
	I take up a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I am confident that the heads of government will agree at Helsinki that the necessary institutional changes will be in place in time for decisions on accession to be taken from 2002. That means not only concluding the intergovernmental conference in time but ensuring that national ratification procedures are complete. I welcome the support of the noble Lord for a focused IGC delivering practical measures to pave the way for enlargement. It came as a delight to my ears to hear that the Loyal Opposition were acknowledging that.
	Too wide an agenda for the IGC would be a mistake. That would risk a delay to the end of the IGC and possibly to enlargement itself. So the focus remains clear. I confirm also to noble Lords that the Government's White Paper on the IGC will set out their approach in general and will address the key issues in the IGC in detail. I invite noble Lords to recall that the protocol agreed at the Amsterdam European Council meeting made a clear link between the number of commissioners and the weight of votes in the Council. We stand by that.
	There is much that can be done to reform the institutions without changing the treaty. Enlargement is a political imperative. That is why the Government have championed it in Europe and will continue to do so. The European Council meeting this weekend will once again demonstrate our commitment to developing a European Union that embraces the whole of Europe.
	I commend the committee on its report--I am pleased to be able to tell the House that the Government are able to agree with so much of what it says--and for its broad support for enlargement. I assure noble Lords that the Government will continue to press for rapid and successful enlargement of the European Union, which will benefit all its members, both present and future. Once again, I express my appreciation to all those who took part in the preparation of the report and to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I can certainly say that the debate has shown the House at its best.

Lord St. John of Bletso: My Lords, this has been a fascinating and far-reaching debate. I am grateful to the Minister for her comprehensive reply. I am also grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. However, despite some reservations, I do not see this as a matter of the coming home of a poisoned chalice, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. It is not only a matter of promoting peace in Europe; the objective is to establish long-term stability. Clearly, there will be many challenges ahead and the need for further reforms.
	Several speakers pointed out that many of the applicant countries will find it difficult to implement the acquis communautaire. However, I am extremely heartened by the words of the Minister when she said that the Government are committed to flexibility in the transitional period.
	I also welcome the point made very clearly by the Minister that this is not only a matter of the applicant countries meeting the challenges of the acquis communautaire, but that it also concerns the readiness for enlargement both of applicant countries and the nations of the European Union. Getting enlargement right will be one of the greatest challenges to face the Continent of Europe. To that end, I wish the Prime Minister and the Government all the best in Helsinki this coming weekend.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Delegated Legislation

Lord Dean of Harptree: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will support changes in procedure to improve parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation.
	My Lords, as I have no right to reply at the end of the debate, perhaps I may begin by thanking all noble Lords who have agreed to participate in it. They come from all parts of the House. I am also particularly grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who has agreed to reply to the debate on behalf of the Government. Furthermore, I am sure that all noble Lords are looking forward with great interest to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. When I saw the list of speakers, such is the expertise and distinction represented there, that I wondered whether I should simply put my Question and then sit down. However, I realised that that would be discourteous to the House.
	It is generally agreed in all parts of the House that delegated legislation has increased, is increasing and will not diminish. Today, legislation covers so many aspects of our personal and business lives and is so detailed that delegation is unavoidable. That is a fact of life. However, I suggest that if we cannot stop it, we must control it better.
	I am indebted to the Library for providing some of the historical background. The origins--the germs--can be traced back to Tudor times. In the Statute of Proclamations, Parliament devolved some of its legislative powers to Henry VIII. He was empowered to legislate by proclamation to deal with sudden emergencies. It is quite significant that that statute was repealed on his death in 1547. However, I suggest that this is an early example of the fact that the full parliamentary process can be too slow. Then, as now, it is necessary to provide for speed, flexibility and quick reaction to events. However, such powers should always be subject to the proper parliamentary safeguards.
	In your Lordships' House, we have the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation. I had the privilege to serve on that committee until I was rotated off, having completed my full term. The committee considers all Bills and whether any delegated powers contained in them are appropriate. It also considers whether those powers should be subject to affirmative or negative resolution. That is an important safeguard for your Lordships' House, in particular with skeleton Bills. All governments will try to introduce skeleton Bills if they think that they can get away with it. For that reason, scrutiny is an important safeguard.
	But, of course, that Select Committee is not able to consider the merits of orders outside its terms of reference. The committee's value to the House, while very useful, is limited. Recently, the committee produced a special report--House of Lords Paper 112 of 27th October 1999. I shall quote one sentence from that report:
	"There is a widespread belief that the provision for parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation can be substantially improved".
	That has come from a committee of your Lordships' House that is highly respected. Indeed, I happened to be a member of the committee at the time, and I would have put it rather more strongly. I tend to think that, at the moment, the procedures are woefully inadequate.
	What should be done? I believe that there is a growing view in your Lordships' House that we should be able to amend or reject statutory instruments, given their growing importance. I am not suggesting an absolute veto, but I think that we should be able to send these instruments back to the House of Commons, as we do with primary legislation, and ask it to think again. It would not be an absolute veto. If we adopt a new procedure, it would be wholly appropriate that the supremacy of the elected Chamber should be preserved by the Parliament Acts.
	I do not want to be dogmatic about the procedures. This is a complicated matter. It may well be that there is a greater role for the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation or other committees. It may be that different procedures are needed for affirmative resolutions or for prayers against negative resolutions. These are all matters which need consideration. All I am suggesting--it is a very modest suggestion--is that the time is now ripe for all these matters to be considered by either the Liaison Committee or the Procedure Committee in your Lordships' House.
	What are the arguments against? I know what the noble and learned Lord will say first of all--it is not for the Government. Of course he is right: it is not for the Government. It is a matter for the House. But your Lordships know very well that no change in procedure is likely to succeed unless it has the support of the government of the day. For example, the Moses Room Committees would never have come into operation had they not at the time had the support of my noble friend Lord Cranborne. The new committee in another place, the Westminster Hall committee, would never have come into operation had it not received the blessing of the Government. I am saying that any change in procedure needs the support of the government of the day.
	The next argument could be "Wait for Wakeham". I know that the noble and learned Lord will produce that argument. He did so at Question Time on 29th November. Of course we will all be very interested to hear what the Royal Commission produces, but the reality is that the procedure of your Lordships' House is a matter for your Lordships' House. We should decide it and we should get on with it.
	Another argument could well be that we are an interim House and we should not mess about with procedure. But we have the authority of no less than the noble Baroness the Leader of the House that we are now more legitimate. We have 92 hereditary colleagues who have been recently elected. They are much more legitimate than me. Furthermore, it is normal for any changes in procedure to be introduced on an experimental basis. We say, "Let's have a go and see how it works out". If it does not work out, we do not have to pursue it. If it is successful, we have a great thing to offer to the reformed House. We will be able to say, "We have improved our procedures on delegated legislation. Here it is for you to take forward".
	In conclusion, I think it is generally agreed that neither House is able to do a proper job in scrutinising delegated legislation. The failure is more blatant with every year that passes. I hope your Lordships will agree that the time is ripe for this matter to be considered and for suggestions for reform to be made by the appropriate committee of your Lordships' House. I hope, too, that Her Majesty's Government will give this proposal a fair wind.

Lord Rogan: My Lords, I crave the indulgence of your Lordships' House to make my maiden speech. I rise to my feet with three emotions. I have a feeling of trepidation at the task which lies before me, not least the immediate one of addressing your Lordships for the first time today. Regarding my long-term task, I hope that I am able to make a worthwhile contribution to the workings of the House. I also have a feeling of humility as I stand before your Lordships today knowing the contribution that you in this House have made to British public life. Coupled with that feeling of humility is a feeling of pride that I have been "chosen" to serve in your Lordships' House.
	By and large, those are the same emotions I experienced some four years ago when I was elected chairman of the Ulster Unionist Party. In that role, I hope that I have helped to guide that party through the most politically interesting and challenging years in the history of Northern Ireland. Those years have seen the devolution of many powers from Westminster to the new Executive and Assembly in Northern Ireland.
	Just as Northern Ireland is experiencing change and development, so, too, is this House; and with the report of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, there will be more change to come. I do not want my contribution to change and development to be an end to the tradition whereby new Peers are heard in silence, so I shall be careful what I say in respect of changes in procedure.
	The devolution of power not only to Northern Ireland but also to Scotland and Wales will have a major impact on how we conduct our business in this House. Indeed, the transfer of responsibility for primary legislation to the devolved administrations will mean also a transfer in responsibility for delegated legislation.
	In the new Northern Ireland Assembly, the basic procedures for Bills--that is, primary legislation--are described at paragraph 26 of the Belfast agreement, and are set out in much greater depth in Sections 5 to 15 of Part II of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. To put it mildly, the legal restraints are extremely tightly drawn and the mechanisms for the control of the various stages of a Bill are uniquely complex. In practice, however, some of the provisions established for the passing of primary legislation on a day-to-day basis may prove to be unnecessarily convoluted for the operation of efficient government.
	In contrast to the detailed requirements specified for the making of laws--also known as Acts--Northern Ireland delegated legislation, generally referred to in Northern Ireland as "statutory rules" rather than "statutory instruments", scarcely merits a mention. I wonder whether that is indicative of a widespread approach to that important area of law.
	Nevertheless, the Assembly has set out in its Standing Orders how the scrutiny of statutory rules will operate. It may be thought a little cumbersome, but I am glad that it is intended to appoint an officer of the Assembly to be known as an Examiner of Statutory Rules. Such a position has been filled, almost without interruption, since the 1974 power-sharing Executive collapsed. His microscopic inspection of delegated legislation has been a striking feature under Direct Rule--something much appreciated by many Members of both Houses, most notably the late Member for Down South, the right honourable Enoch Powell--but perhaps not always by the civil servants, who were subject on occasions to the well-deserved strictures of the examiner. This field of delegated legislation will be an interesting one to watch, especially in the light of the constitutional developments in Scotland and Wales as well as Northern Ireland.
	This Chamber represents a long tradition in providing checks and balances in the legislative process. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is to be congratulated on his recent expression of views on the need for change over the control of secondary legislation. We shall watch developments in all four corners of the kingdom.
	Before speaking today, I was advised that a maiden speech should be non-controversial, brief and humorous--three characteristics for which a dour Ulster Presbyterian is not well known. I trust that I have given due respect to the tradition of non-controversy. Short of telling an Irish joke, I do not see how I might have been humorous. However, looking at the clock, I see that at least I have been brief.

Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. So far as I can remember, the last debate that we conducted took place under very different circumstances. There was much liquid refreshment around, although I suspect that the noble Lord was not as enthusiastic a participant in that part of the proceedings as I was. I should like to pay a heartfelt tribute to the admirable speech, if I may be impertinent, that he has just delivered with his usual courage and originality. The noble Lord has broadened our perception of the subject under discussion. I also pay tribute to the outstanding part that he has played in the affairs of the Province not only in the past few months but for many years. We are privileged to have him as a Member of our House and greatly look forward to his future contributions, confident that they will be up to the high standard that he has set for us all during the course of this evening's debate.
	I also express appreciation to my noble friend Lord Dean of Harptree for his initiative in raising this matter this evening. I particularly enjoyed his version of Dunning's motion which is very appropriate to the matter that we are debating this evening. As my noble friend pointed out, there is a great deal of secondary legislation about. I doubt whether that phenomenon will be reversed. Like my noble friend, I suspect, I have no inherent objection in principle to this. Those of us who have had anything to do with government or the management of its business recognise that often logic, convenience and the sensible arrangement of legislative powers favour the granting of substantial delegated powers in a Bill. However, as my noble friend observed, governments of all stamps are prone to be tempted to introduce rather more skeleton Bills than certainly those who find themselves in opposition would approve.
	The exception to the principle is the Henry VIII clause. I say to the noble and learned Lord who is to reply this evening that I am glad that the Government have adopted almost slavishly the example that I for one tried to set when we on these Benches sat on the other side of the Chamber; namely, to follow very closely the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee (as it then was) as a defence against excessive delegated powers and Henry VIII clauses in primary legislation.
	This is not a new subject for debate in your Lordships' House. I well remember some years ago replying on behalf of the then government--I have a sneaking suspicion that the noble and learned Lord will refer to this--in a debate initiated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, well supported by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in which it was asserted that this House retain its unfettered powers to reject delegated legislation. I did not quarrel with that assertion. I suggested, nevertheless, that it would be a good idea that any change that occurred should not lead to undesirable gridlock, and I adhere to that principle. But I worried then as now--as a member of the government it was more difficult to do so as openly as I would have liked--about the lack of any mechanism for greater scrutiny of the powers that all governments seek through delegated legislation. In this House we can only reject it if we break the convention established as recently as 1968. We can do no more to amend such legislation. I believe that this state of affairs gives the executive very substantial powers without the need for it to subject itself in practical terms to any detailed scrutiny. We cannot amend orders.
	This is a substantial subject which we do not have time to examine in detail this evening. I close merely by asking the Government whether when the noble and learned Lord comes to reply they will give an undertaking that at the least they will try to establish a mechanism, perhaps through the usual channels and with the involvement of another place, by which this lacuna in our legislative arrangements may be filled. If the noble and learned Lord were able to give that clear undertaking, he might also be able to find time, again through the usual channels, for this House to give greater attention to the establishment of such a mechanism between both Houses of Parliament and how we should go about it, and for a debate on the Floor of the House, perhaps in government time.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, one addresses a thin House, about 20 Members--not even a quorum--at the end of the day on a matter of vital concern to this House. It is my privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Cranborne, whose speech on the hallmark debate of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, asserted the entitlement to accept or reject, approved the convention not to make an outright challenge and warned against the exercise of crude power which could result in stalemate without resolution.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, took the view that the right to reject should be exercised where subordinate legislation entrenches on policy or there is an unusual or unexpected use of delegated power such as attracted the attention of the Joint Select Committee or the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee.
	At the outset, do we all not have to seek to distinguish between entitlement and the exercise of entitlement? Both derive from convention, as represented from time to time by Standing Orders and the Companion. A series of ad hoc arrangements as to the exercise may crystallise in convention which, in effect, abrogates an erstwhile entitlement. Is it not all a matter of broad consensus as to whether such has occurred?
	The conventions of the old House were devised to ensure orderly government and the avoidance of stalemate when there was a massive Conservative/Whig position in this place in the way of opposition--a situation which does not exist today and is never likely to arise again. In these changed circumstances the new House must surely examine the conventions of the old House and develop new conventions relevant to the due discharge of our functions.
	As a foot soldier in the debate, I propose to defer to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, not knowing what he is going to say--such is my respect for him. This is not a political debate.
	If we are to control abuse of executive power by resort to delegated legislation, the right to reject must be affirmed. Some new convention should be developed--in the form perhaps of a divisible Motion--to ask another place to relay the statutory instrument in some amended form which, if not so relaid, could be rejected. Is it not of cardinal importance to insert this right of rejection and to refute the view expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, that convention introduced in the wake of the Rhodesian sanctions order--now on pages 187-8 of the Companion--abrogated the right to reject; and his contention that the critical amendment or Motion which by convention is not divisible and has absolutely no practical effect is, in his view and his contention on behalf of the Government, wholly acceptable? That must be rejected.
	For if such a Motion were to be tabled, is it conceivable that another place would ever relay an amended version save on the personal intervention of the Leader of this House, as happened once in my presence to my own knowledge under the aegis of Lord Whitelaw, who summoned the Minister and told him that if he did not amend the regulation this House would reject it? How many Leaders of this House have that power of persuasion? I say that in the presence of more than one distinguished former Leader of the House.
	A new convention must be developed alongside "Critical Amendments and Motions" referred to on page 187 of the Companion to the Standing Orders which has no practical effect. Why? It is in order to afford some effective control over abuse of executive power. As the noble Baroness the Leader of the House acknowledged on 3rd November, this is a matter for the House and it is master of its own procedures. I hope that the Leader of the Opposition may institute a full debate before such matter is ever referred to any Select Committee.
	Surely any new form of divisible Motion proposing amendment must, as before, be qualified with guidelines as to restraint. The objective of this speech is not to engender confrontation with another place.

Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, for the opportunity to discuss the need to improve parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation. I speak in support of the Question, but I venture to develop a broader approach to the Question which has been anticipated in part by the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, in his magnificent and moving maiden speech.
	At the outset I am bound to pay tribute to the work of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, and the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Select Committee and their dedicated legal advisers. I recall my involvement for a number of years with the joint committee, and earlier this year I was privileged to become a member of the delegated powers committee. Nothing that I may say this evening detracts in any way from my admiration for their work. All the same, there are problems.
	By now about 2,500 pieces of delegated legislation a year come before Parliament. They set out detailed provisions, often laying down precise conditions or restrictions which may be of secondary significance to Ministers. But for many people to whom they apply they are matters of great practical importance, of equal importance to the general policy embodied in the parent Act. But there are, and have been, complaints for a long time that the scrutiny of delegated legislation is inadequate. That concern has been expressed by many bodies including, for example, the TUC, the CBI, the National Consumer Council, local authorities, the Law Society and the Bar Council. A great deal of the report, Making the Law, published in 1992-93 by the Hansard Society commission on the legislative process relates to the problem. In paragraph 264, the report concluded that the scrutiny of delegated legislation in Parliament is inadequate and unsatisfactory, but it need not be.
	Notwithstanding the report of the Hansard Society commission, it seems to me that the underlying problem has not changed all that much, if at all, since 1992, save for the contribution of the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee. However, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Dean, that committee is unable to comment on the substance of the order.
	There are in being two significant processes which were unknown in 1992. First, the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 introduced new consultative processes in respect of draft deregulation orders. Should anything be wrong with the draft deregulation order, there is a good chance of it being spotted in the course of widespread consultation and being dealt with before the instrument is finally settled.
	Major instruments of delegated legislation are no less important than deregulation orders. I therefore believe that there is a strong case for introducing consultation processes similar to those under the deregulation Act 1994, but with adaptations, in respect of making delegated legislation especially for the major instruments. That raises the question of what is the criteria for deciding what is a major instrument, but I am sure that there can be enlightenment on that.
	I turn to the second significant development, which was touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. The National Assembly for Wales has taken on the responsibility of the Secretary of State for making subordinate legislation in the devolved fields in Wales. The Assembly is without powers of primary legislation, but the examination and amendment of subordinate legislation is one of its important tasks. The scrutiny is entrusted to a subject committee whose members have a special interest in it. The committee may take evidence and amend the draft order. A very important feature of the procedure is that the Assembly Secretary must prepare a regulatory appraisal of the likely costs and benefits of complying with the draft order, unless in the circumstances it is inappropriate or not reasonably practicable.
	In paragraph 369 of the Hansard Society commission report, there is a suggestion that the commission favours a legislative role for the departmentally related Select Committees. I believe that something along those lines cannot today be easily dismissed as a far-fetched fantasy as it is now happening in the National Assembly for Wales.
	That brings me naturally to my final point. It may be that our hopes in Wales may be misconceived, but I believe that, as the Welsh Assembly is without power to make primary legislation, there will over time be a demand for more matters to be transferred to subordinate legislation to be scrutinised by the Assembly and amended if need be if the full benefits of the devolution settlement are to be realised.
	Given that pressure, and the pressure in England for more detail to be transferred to delegated legislation, there is another reason for believing that the problem identified by the noble Lord, Lord Dean, cannot remain unaddressed indefinitely by Westminster.
	This short debate has been an opportunity for us to put forward views to which I hope the Government will listen and I hope that we shall learn their views.

Lord Norton of Louth: My Lords, I am delighted to follow the interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, which gave us tremendous food for thought. I also welcome this debate on an important topic and congratulate my noble friend on initiating it. As he said, delegated legislation has been with us for a long time. The principle of lawmakers delegating rule making has a somewhat more ancient lineage than he suggested. It is mentioned by Plato in The Laws and in this country it dates back to Tudor times. The Statute of Sewers of 1531 is offered as the first significant example of enabling legislation. However, the introduction of procedure to regulate the making of such legislation is a 19th century phenomenon. It is only in the present century--which, I might add, still has just over a year to go--that some form of systematic parliamentary scrutiny has been established.
	The problem, which has been touched on, is that the scrutiny has not kept pace with the sheer volume of delegated legislation. The number of statutory instruments has increased by 50 per cent over the past 25 years. In some years, statutory instruments cover more than 9,000 pages. John Garrett, when he was a distinguished Labour Member of another place, wrote that,
	"the use of delegated legislation on the scale we see today is clearly an abuse of Parliament".
	The Joint Committee and the Commons Select Committee on Statutory Instruments have variously reported on the difficulties faced in ensuring effective scrutiny. The need to strengthen scrutiny of statutory instruments is overwhelming, and is widely recognised as such. That need is not confined to your Lordships' House. It involves both Houses working in a complementary manner, as they do in the scrutiny of European legislation. I welcome greatly the fact that my noble friend's Question relates to parliamentary scrutiny and not simply to scrutiny by your Lordships' House.
	There is a case for widening the scope of scrutiny by committee. The terms of reference of the Joint Committee are drawn fairly narrowly; a point which has already been touched on. There is a case for allowing the committee to consider whether statutory instruments are flawed other than on essentially technical or procedural grounds.
	There is also a case for extending scrutiny by committee. In the other place, statutory instruments subject to affirmative resolution stand referred to Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation. Why not make those committees sessional committees, similar to the European Standing Committees, and give them particular sectors to cover? That might ensure more structured and informed scrutiny; it may also encourage a little greater interest on the part of Members. So, too, might giving the committees power to make substantive recommendations, rather than simply debating a statutory instrument on a neutral Motion and then reporting that they have considered it. The present relationship in the other place between the Standing Committees and the Motion put to the House is untenable and needs to be addressed.
	What of your Lordships' House? I turn to the two issues that are of particular concern and have been mentioned: should statutory instruments be amendable, and should the House exercise its power to annul delegated legislation? I realise that there are precedents for amending delegated legislation, but as the Procedure Committee in the other place noted in 1986, there are considerable procedural difficulties. I am, however, persuadable that statutory instruments should be amendable, and my noble friend Lord Strathclyde has put forward a proposal, in his recent Politeia lecture, that merits serious consideration. Implementing his proposal may well enable this House to fulfil an important and constructive role, similar to that played in primary legislation. Having said that, I recognise that the scope for amending delegated legislation is quite narrow.
	The power to say "aye" or "nay" to a statutory instrument is a power at the disposal of both Houses. My view is that your Lordships' House should be prepared, if necessary--I stress that word--to exercise that power. I do not say that because there is a new House. I took the same view when the old House existed. I have never understood--or rather, never accepted--the rationale underpinning the convention that this House does not divide on a Prayer to annul an instrument. The situation is not analogous to that covered by the Salisbury convention. I appreciate that delegated legislation is not subject to the Parliament Acts. However, secondary legislation is not the same as primary legislation, not least because secondary legislation is rarely, if ever, promised in a party's election manifesto and because if a statutory instrument is rejected, another instrument can be laid. As such, the treatment of delegated legislation by this House should be seen as analogous to its treatment of amendments to legislation rather than its treatment of the principle on Second Reading.
	The House has previously resolved,
	"That this House affirms its unfettered freedom to vote on any subordinate legislation submitted for its consideration".
	To exercise that freedom raises no great constitutional issues; it simply requires a department to take away a statutory instrument and, if necessary, come back with a better one. A self-denying ordinance on the part of the House might kick in at a later stage, or, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde suggested, the proposal could be embodied in primary legislation and hence be subject to passage under the Parliament Acts. However, having said that, I recognise that the use of a vote is a blunt, negative weapon. As has already been suggested, I believe that we should be looking at constructive ways of carrying out scrutiny.
	Given that, I want to end with a suggestion. This is a subject which lends itself to consideration by an ad hoc committee of your Lordships' House. A committee could assess the scale of the problem and recommend the most appropriate procedures for this House to adopt. Such an inquiry could encompass not only the scrutiny of statutory instruments but also the failure in some cases to bring in orders, not least some commencement orders. There is a great deal to be considered.
	This House has the membership that allows statutory instruments to be subject to informed scrutiny, and I see no reason why the House should not play to its strengths. I believe that the Government, for their part, should welcome any steps which will serve to improve the quality of legislation in this country.

Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, for introducing a Question which is both important and timely. I also pay tribute to two other noble Lords: first, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. A debate on regulations without him is, indeed, like Hamlet without the prince. I wish the noble Baroness, Lady Simon, a full and happy recovery and look forward to seeing the noble and learned Lord in his place when this subject next arises.
	The other noble to whom I owe thanks is Lord Rippon of Hexham, who guided my first faltering steps in this subject and who taught me the importance of distinguishing form from substance and of preserving discussions on procedure from what the 18th century used to call "the rage of party". He is, of course, the spiritual father of the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee, of which the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, has been such a distinguished member. The House is in his debt.
	The law is made by both Houses, though not by both Houses in an equal capacity. That means that there must be an input from both Houses in the making of law which creates any controversy. While I have been here, I have observed a change in the matters brought forward by regulation towards the bringing forward of more and more high level, controversial matters to be brought in by regulation. I shall not list them. This is a not a party debate and it is not my purpose to start a party argument.
	However, a number of them are measures which we have committed ourselves to repeal in successive election manifestos. Surely it is absurd that a measure should be important enough for us to commit ourselves in an election manifesto to repeal it and yet we should be quite unable to take any vote about it in the course of its passage through this House. That is a situation which must change. I cannot help thinking that the change to bring in more dramatic measures by regulation and the increasing readiness to challenge regulation are two processes which are interdependent, as, indeed, logically they should be.
	Since the debate of 20th October 1994 when this House resolved its unfettered freedom to vote against subordinate legislation, we on these Benches have done so three times: once on the Port of Ipswich privatisation regulations--a Division called by my noble friend Lord Avebury; and twice on single parent regulations--just to be impartial, one from the Conservative Benches and one from the Labour Benches, both done by myself.
	Therefore, as far as we on these Benches are concerned, the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, is asking us to continue what is already our existing practice. That is something we are quite ready to do. Of course, we accept that that would involve the extension of the Parliament Acts to cover regulation. I imagine that we would wish not to vote down a regulation on a matter which is covered by the Salisbury convention. But I believe that amendment is more congenial to the spirit of this House than rejection. The noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, is of course right that in normal circumstances a regulation is unamendable. But, of course, nothing is ever quite that simple.
	Under the Government of India Act, the Census Act and one or two others, there is a procedure which allows Parliament to pass amendable regulations. If the noble Viscount cares to look at the Committee and Report stages of the student loans Bill 1990, he will find I once had the good fortune to carry an amendment to that effect by the princely majority of one vote. But it is the proverbial "enough" and it caused considerable surprise when it went to another place. That precedent can be considered again.
	I listened with care and interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, said about the deregulation procedure and also to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. There is a procedure available which achieves what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, was asking for, and by sheer coincidence, if your Lordships look at the Official Report of 20th October 1994, you will find that I moved such a Motion immediately at the conclusion of the debate of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon. It is a Motion which asks that the regulations be not proceeded with. I was advised by the Table that that was a fatal Motion. The Motion goes on to ask the Government to "lay amended regulations", leaving out this, that and the other, changing whichever point it is necessary to change.
	Looking again at the Motion which I moved on that occasion, it lays out almost exactly what this Government have since done, but it took the intervention of the European Court of Justice to achieve that. I prefer remedies to be rather nearer to hand.
	For any of that to work, as the noble Lords, Lord Norton of Louth and Lord Prys-Davies, have been saying, there must be give and take. For my part, I am very happy to take part in give and take. But it takes two to tango. Until the Government realise that they cannot always have their own way, there is no chance of give and take.
	The Government should reflect on how lucky they are. Other primary legislative chambers have to cope with an elected senate and a written constitution and are far more restrained than this one ever is. So if the Government can go a little way, then we can compromise. If not, the noble and learned Lord knows what it is that concentrates the mind wonderfully.

Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, I hope that the Minister will support what most of us in this House regard as the very modest proposals put forward by my noble friend. Moreover, I hope that he will be prepared to give us the Government's opinion on the moral issue in advance of the Wakeham Commission and any decision of the Joint Committee of both Houses.
	The fact is that all of us speaking in the debate tonight are enormously and genuinely worried about the power which the British executive possesses. It could be argued, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, has already hinted at, that it is one of the most powerful executives in the modern world. No checks are provided by a written constitution nor by a system of separation of powers nor by the chance of history. The continental parties tend to fragment. The fact is that the main basis for the power of the executive which the Minister represents is the great power and strength of the British political party. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will give attention to that fact which lies behind the debate this evening and which will, I am sure, lie behind many debates in the future.
	Since 1945 few rebels against their parties have managed to secure re-election. Over the past decade or recently, most parties--my own included--have increased central control over candidates. Further, there is the growing professionalism of politics to which the noble and learned Lord must give attention in the nature of the democratic process. That is quite simply that young men and women leaving university with a good degree join a think tank; become a special adviser; and then, strange to say, they get a constituency. That has meant that since 1945 many are reluctant to rebel. If electoral disaster strikes, we all know, in this House and elsewhere, that their best chance of securing a job outside politics must be enhanced by securing ministerial office.
	The noble Lord must address the fact that the executive, relying on loyalty and discipline, can usually secure, as it has over the past two or three decades, all that it wants. That is especially true when the party has a large majority as the party opposite has known in the 1980s and as we are experiencing today.
	One advantage most of us in this House possess--dare I suggest, the noble Lord included with a large income in another walk of life--is our independence. We are nominated for life. As one noble Lord said in this House: there is nothing that the executive can give us that we want and there is nothing we possess that the executive can take away. Thus, paradoxically, against the principles of democracy, this House is able to give more detailed attention and care to delegated powers than is the case in the elected Chamber. I hope that the noble Lord will not speak of democratic accountability without at least making a nod in the direction of what produces democratic accountability, which is a party label hung round one's neck. He knows as well as I how that label gets round one's neck.
	I am sure that all of us in this House will agree that over the past few decades--I would go further and agree with my noble friend Lord Norton and say since the 1880s, and particularly because of two world wars--there has been too massive a growth in delegated powers being given to Secretaries of State. When I was on the Front Bench, for example, many of the crucial details of the implementation of the new powers in the Education Act, matters such as those mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, which were the subject of party manifestos, were subject to delegated powers from the Secretary of State.
	Surely it could only assist good government if this House was able to secure alterations and improvements in these orders either by negotiation or, ultimately, threat of rejection. There is only one body in this House that has such powers and it is relatively unknown. I refer to the Ecclesiastical Committee. The powerful Church, the prelates, propose to take away powers from the church wardens. The Ecclesiastical Committee, which only has powers of rejection, not amendment, said, "We'll reject". Amazingly, they then proposed amendments. We could do that. The power of rejection, even on a powerful executive, is amazing.
	It would be a great inconvenience to the executive but in the end, dare I suggest, it would secure good government and more effective legislation. However, I would ask that we do not use the words "democratic accountability" without party control.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I believe that it was Andy Warhol who said that the world is run by people who turn up. It therefore grieves me to note that the only Government Back-Bencher to feel that the debate is worthy of vocal attention is the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, who was a former colleague of mine on the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
	There is no doubt from this debate and, indeed, previous debates, that over recent years, secondary legislation has become a major legislative tool of all governments, often sketchily reviewed by Parliament as a whole. This is not to decry the work of the Joint Committee on which the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and I had the honour of serving and, in my case, currently serve. The job of that committee is to inform Members of both Houses, first, of what statutory instruments exist and which ones have had points taken by the committee which, of course, are only within the committee's terms of reference. To paraphrase, these are when they impose charges on the public revenues; exclude the original Act from challenge in the courts; are retrospective; have a delay in the publication or laying or when they come into operation before they are laid; where they are doubtfully intra vires; and where they suffer from unclear and defective drafting.
	The Joint Committee is therefore barred from discussing policy. I have lost count over the years of the times I have raised what I regard as perfectly good points, and been told by successive chairmen and legal advisers, "That is policy". That is the nub of the problem. Unless statutory instruments have to be debated, as in the case of affirmative instruments, or--and this is erratic--a debate depends on a Member of either House picking up a negative instrument and tabling a Motion to discuss it, they go by default.
	In a word, it is "chancy". If one is quick off the mark, one can table a Prayer, which in this House the Government must find time for within 40 days; otherwise we have to resort to the sort of device used in the past by the noble Earl, Lord Russell; that of a Petition to withdraw and there is no copper-bottomed guarantee that it will be debated at all. That must be bad for democracy and my noble friend Lord Dean is quite right; something must be done.
	Affirmative instruments do not really fare much better. Over the years, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, reminded us the other day, in this House the practice of not dividing has become an accepted one. The noble and learned Lord called it a "constitutional convention"; but it is not. It is a custom of the House and, as such, is not inviolable. Customs can, after all, be changed. Back-Benchers in particular have always retained the right to divide and one day I have no doubt that they will. The fact that they have not done so since 1968 is neither here nor there. So I am not in the least worried about affirmatives. The mechanisms are in place.
	However, the negatives are a totally different matter; and I see two mischiefs. As I have said, the first is that a mechanism must be found off the Floor of the House, otherwise too much Chamber time is taken up to debate the policy out of the current Praying time. I must confess that I am not attracted by the idea that this House should pass a Motion requesting another place to amend, however temporarily, a statutory instrument. As I said the other day, it would delay the implementation of the whole order, even the bits that this House decided were acceptable, and place the legislation in limbo. I do not see that that would be to anyone's advantage.
	I can even see a time when your Lordships could delay the commencement of an Act of Parliament, which is often done by negative resolution order. It would swing the powers too much in the favour of the Opposition and Back-Benchers and no government could allow that. What any government should consider is one of two things; either to allow the Joint Committee to consider matters of policy and report them to the House, on which there could, if Members took the point, be an effective delaying Motion of, say, one month, unless countermanded by another place; or they could set up a Select Committee of this House to advise on policy along the lines of the oft-mentioned Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation. It would not have to meet very often, perhaps only when the JCSI minuted that a Member asked a question which was vetoed as a policy matter; or perhaps at the request of a forum of Members. That would be for future discussion and decision.
	Another thought occurs to me. There have been times in the past and no doubt will be again when the reports of the Joint Committee are delayed. That cuts into Praying time and can, in extreme circumstances, mean that Praying time is totally used up before noble Lords are informed of the committee's discussion. In those cases, a Prayer is totally valueless and there is, as I said, no pressure on government to find time for a slightly more general debate. Instead of, as currently happens, Praying time running from the time an order is laid, why cannot it run for a shorter period; for example, from the date of the JCSI reports? Alternatively, what is so magic about 40 days? Why not 50 days or 60 days? Why not 40 sitting days which would be very logical and acceptable to everyone?
	None of those suggestions would affect the paramountcy of another place, which--I agree with those noble Lords who have spoken--is very important. One of my son's more critical remarks is, "Dad, get real!" Well, I, for one, think that I have done so.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, perhaps I may begin by adding my congratulations and thanks to those already expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, not only on tabling this debate but also on his service to the committee, which I understand to have been a most distinguished and wise one. We are all extremely grateful to him for giving us this opportunity to debate the matter. I should also like to add a few words of great appreciation as regards the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. He has joined us after an extremely important and significant experience in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the noble Lord has lived through more change in the past week than the rest of us have done in most of our lifetimes. I am sure that he will bring to this House a great deal of knowledge based upon that experience which will enlighten our debates.
	The fact that I am participating in this debate is perhaps rather surprising as I am not a lawyer, nor, indeed, any kind of expert on procedure. I am driven by just two things, both of which I should like to mention. Then, at the end of my remarks, I should like to draw together some questions for the Minister. I am driven partly by the concern which I have felt in the past few months, and which I felt in a similar way under the previous Conservative administration, about the extent to which legislation now coming before this House is amended very late indeed in the legislative process. This is not an aspect of change and procedure that we have so far discussed.
	Frankly, when major amendments embodying delegated legislation and major powers for regulation are brought in at such a late stage in a Bill's proceedings that neither the Committee stage nor in some cases even the Report stage enable us properly to scrutinise and debate the legislation, one can only say that the whole function of the legislature in our system is beginning to be seriously undermined. I do not believe that this is because of the ill will of either this Government or their predecessor. It flows from an extraordinary desire on the part of governments to legislate more and more; and often to do so on the basis of having been given the go-ahead by the legislation committee, as a sub-committee of Cabinet, without the departments concerned being adequately prepared to bring forward a properly thought-through Bill.
	I say that with no political desire to embarrass anyone. It is a process that we have all seen becoming cumulative. But, frankly, it frightens me. We are not serving our citizens well. More and more legislation is reaching the statute book that is simply disgraceful in terms of its drafting, clarity and adequacy.
	With regard to procedure, we have the further difficulty in this House of the long-understood conventions that restrain the contributions that one can make both on Report and on Third Reading. Indeed, they now literally stand in the way of our proper discussion of such matters. That is an issue which this House must now address.
	I turn to the remark made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. He, like my noble friend Lord Russell, deserves the great thanks of this House for his continual dedication to the question of how to make democracy work in respect of secondary legislation. When this matter was previously discussed at length in October 1994, the noble and learned Lord remarked:
	"The other place seems to be increasingly under the hand of the Executive".--[Official Report, 20/10/94; col. 358.]
	He said that in 1994 when a different government were in power. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington of Oxenford, made a similar point today.
	I simply want to add two further points. Unquestionably, the Cabinet, as a collective area of responsibility, has weakened over the past 20 years. It is not, frankly, the power that it once was; and Cabinet committees are increasingly weak or replaced by ad hoc committees that do not have the same influence that Cabinet committees once had. I speak with at least a little knowledge of this matter having spent six years in the Cabinet and having seen this process begun and carried forward under successive governments.
	Today we have something approaching the beginnings of a presidential system. I believe that is largely driven by demands in the media to be able to point to one leader as in some way symbolic of the whole position of a government. However, we do not have a presidential system in the United Kingdom and we have none of the checks and balances that a presidential system such as that of the United States works within, sometimes to the extent that much of its legislation is nullified by a process of gridlock.
	We are at the other end of the spectrum, with an extraordinarily powerful executive and a relatively weak legislature. That brings me to my final point. In the few years that I have spent in this House I have come to appreciate the extraordinary importance of the Select Committee on delegated legislation. I believe that it is now one of the least understood pillars of our democracy. Its role is of great importance. I have three questions for the noble and learned Lord, whose considerable intelligence should be brought to bear on this matter.
	First, what view does he take of the proposal that the committee should have the right to propose the amendment or even the annulment of secondary legislation? Secondly, should there be any system of scrutiny to question statements made by Ministers about the compatibility of legislation with the European Convention on Human Rights, because I am dubious about the extent to which we can rest upon a simple statement? Thirdly, in his view do we not now need extensive powers, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, to look at the relationship between legislation passed by devolved bodies and the situation and standing of the legislature at Westminster? I hope that he will address those questions which I believe are of vital importance to the life of our democracy.

Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, as is witnessed by the number of noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, this has been an interesting and timely debate. We are all indebted to my noble friend Lord Dean of Harptree for introducing it.
	I particularly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, to the House. I thank him for his maiden speech. He obviously comes to us with an important background in industrial affairs in Northern Ireland and of course also in political affairs. He said that he had been advised to be brief, uncontroversial and humorous--something of a problem for a dour Ulster Presbyterian. As a dour Scottish Presbyterian, I am seldom brief--although I shall be this evening--I am never uncontroversial, but I always try to be humorous!
	The convention with regard to secondary legislation has existed only as between the Front Benches of the major parties in this House; that is, the Conservative and Labour Parties. It is fair to say that the Liberal Democrat Benches, especially as represented by the noble Earl, and the Cross Benches, have never accepted it. Indeed on a number of occasions the noble Earl, Lord Russell, used his ingenuity to get round the convention. I believe that, in a debate introduced by the noble Earl some five or six years ago, the House passed a resolution. The resolution appears at page 182 in the Companion to the Standing Orders,
	"this House affirms its unfettered freedom to vote on any subordinate legislation submitted for its consideration".
	I do not believe that I am giving away a secret when I say--

Earl Russell: My Lords, I am most grateful but I really must not claim credit which is not due to me. That was a Motion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale.

Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I stand corrected. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, has always pursued this matter with vigour. When I was a government Minister and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, rose to speak, I always paid close attention to what he said and, at best, quickly agreed to take away and study whatever point he was attempting to make, as the chances were that he was probably correct and my brief was probably wrong.
	My point was that the Companion makes it clear that there is an unfettered freedom to vote, and that is important. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, used his ingenuity to tempt the party opposite, when it was in opposition, to join the Liberal Democrats in the Lobbies. I have no doubt that he will attempt to tempt us to join him in the Lobbies. I am sure that the noble Earl will welcome the idea that we may be tempted. The passage of the House of Lords Act 1999 has changed things in quite a dramatic manner. Even the Government accept that. In the November edition of the Parliamentary Monitor, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House had this to say. As an aside, I am surprised that neither the noble Baroness, as the Leader of the House, nor her deputy, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, is replying. After all, this is about the business of the procedures of the House. With all due respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, with whom I enjoy exchanging comments, it has nothing to do with the Cabinet Office, which is concerned with getting through Government business and not with the procedures of your Lordships' House or with the Dome. I do not believe that the Dome yet has responsibility for the procedures of your Lordships' House.
	I return to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. She said that the House,
	"will be able to speak with more authority ... A decision by the House not to support a proposal from the Government will carry more weight because it will have to include supporters from a range of political and independent opinions. So the Executive will be better held to account".
	I am in complete agreement with what I will call the Jay convention.
	So how do we hold the Government to account and do so better? We believe, as I have said, that the Front Bench convention that we should never vote on secondary legislation is now at an end in the new House. How we deal with secondary legislation in the future must be subject to discussions within the House so that we can in fact subject secondary legislation to proper scrutiny.
	I am currently involved in considering the Nuclear Safeguards Bill. It is a measure that we all agree on. It is quite short, with 12 clauses and nine pages. But the meat of the Bill is in the regulations, which run to 21 pages. So if I wanted to pray against the regulations I could not amend any part of the detail. Yet because I have the draft regulations to hand--I am grateful for that--I could table an amendment putting the draft regulations in as a schedule to the Bill and then proceed to amend them. That is rather complex and I do not believe that that is the right way to go about it.
	To use the words of the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, it would not be wise to better hold the Executive to account only by accepting or rejecting an order in its entirety. Surely it would be much much wiser to seek a new procedure by which we could also amend secondary legislation, thus giving the Government the opportunity to take on board the amendment and get their secondary legislation. Again, to repeat the Leader's words,
	"the Executive will be held better to account".
	As regards secondary legislation I believe that that is what we should do in future.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, perhaps I may join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, in giving the House through this Unstarred Question the opportunity to debate what I believe to be a very important issue. Perhaps I may also join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, on his maiden speech. It was very impressive. I believe that the House will greatly benefit from his knowledge of affairs in Ulster and that it will undoubtedly benefit from his great courage in putting forward his views. I welcome him as warmly as possible to this House. I also join with the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in expressing my deep personal regret that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, is not in his place today. All noble Lords would acknowledge his great personal experience and his clarity in relation to these issues.
	Perhaps I may start my reply by setting out what I believe the present position to be. It is important that the Government should set out clearly what they say is the position. Before the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999 I think it would be generally accepted, pace the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that there was a convention that the House would not by means of any effective Motion reject secondary legislation. I say that accepting, of course, that in theory the House had the power to vote down such secondary legislation, just indeed as it has the power to vote down at Second Reading primary legislation, even though voting down such primary legislation would be in breach of what has come to be known as the Salisbury/Addison Convention. The fact that in both cases the House has the power does not mean that there is not a constitutional convention which, in effect, involves the House in accepting that it will not use that power.

Earl Russell: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord remembers, but the power to vote down a Bill at Second Reading was last used as recently as January of this year. I do not believe that the Government were very angry.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, all noble Lords are aware of the circumstances under which that occurred. In some respects that led to a speedy resolution of what might otherwise have been a tricky problem. Equally, I do not believe that any noble Lord in the Chamber tonight or in the House of Lords would regard the position as being wrongly expressed if I said that the Salisbury convention, although it does not detract from the power of the House to vote down Bills at Second Reading, is a convention that the House respects. Furthermore, it reflects the view of Dicey in The Law of the Constitution, which states:
	"The general rule that the House of Lords must in matters of legislation ultimately give way to the House of Commons is one of the best-established maxims of modern constitutional ethics".
	I believe that all noble Lords would accept that what the then Viscount Cranborne and Viscount Addison were reflecting was the acceptance by the House of Lords of the primacy of the House of Commons.
	The then Viscount Cranborne set out the approach of the Conservative Opposition in the Lords in 1945 when establishing the basis of the doctrine by saying that:
	"Whatever our personal views, we should frankly recognize that these proposals were put before the country at the recent General Election and that the people of this country, with full knowledge of these proposals, returned a Labour Party to power. The Government may, therefore, I think, fairly claim that they have a mandate to introduce these proposals".--[Official Report, 16/8/1945; col. 47.]

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I apologise to the noble and learned Lord for intervening. The noble and learned Lord referred to Dicey. Dicey was concerned with the position in the old House. The noble and learned Lord accepts that this is a matter of broad consensus and that what happened as a matter of broad consensus in the old House must be reconsidered and re-examined by the new House. Surely the noble and learned Lord would concede that these are now totally changed circumstances.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I was analysing the position by setting out the circumstances before the House of Lords Act 1999, and asking whether the Act will change those circumstances. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, suggested that, because there is no longer a Conservative hegemony in this House, that somehow changes the basis of the Salisbury convention and, presumably, the convention in relation to delegated legislation. With great respect, that does not for one moment repay examination.
	The then Viscount Cranborne set out the reason for the Salisbury convention as being the democratic will of the people having been expressed. It would be wrong for this House to reject that democratic will. What possible difference could it make that the will of the people was rejected by the Conservatives or the Labour Party in this House, or a combination of any other parties? With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, there is absolutely no logic whatsoever in his position.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, with respect, there is no logic in that reply. If an Opposition in this place--be they Conservative, Whig or whatever--have an effective voting majority, there is no substratum for the Salisbury convention.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, with the greatest respect, that does not answer the point. The point which the then Viscount Cranborne was putting forward was that we should not reject the will of the people. It does not seem to me to matter whether a Conservative majority, a coalition majority or a Labour majority rejects it. Therefore, with respect, the noble Lord's point does not change one jot the basis of that convention.
	The basis of the delegated legislation convention must be the same; indeed, even more strongly so. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, accepted in his speech, there is plainly no power under the Parliament Act, as there is in relation to primary legislation, to force delegated legislation through. So there is a conundrum. Should this House reject delegated legislation, whether because it wants it amended but is forced to reject it or on some other basis, the consequence is that this House defeats for ever, if it wants, the purpose of the views of the House of Commons. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, accepted that that could not be the case. He said that there would have to be an amendment to the Parliament Act. That being the case, it would appear to be accepted, at least by the noble Earl, that one cannot move at this stage to a position that we break with the convention that the House can defeat secondary legislation.
	That brings us to this point. There is a convention that this House should not take on the elected Chamber. It exists in relation to primary legislation of the kind described in the Salisbury convention. It exists equally in relation to secondary legislation, as, in effect, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, accepted. Before we break with that convention we would need to make a number of changes.
	What is at the heart of the position of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, is that we should refer the question of what to do about delegated legislation to the Liaison Committee, or an ad hoc procedure committee, or whatever the appropriate committee might be. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, that does not seem to be sensible when the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, has been appointed chairman of a Royal Commission tasked in part with considering what should be done in relation to this House and delegated legislation. What is more, that commission has received evidence from the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee as to what should be done. I can think of nothing less sensible than this House expressing views in relation to that matter before it has heard from the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham.

Lord Dean of Harptree: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for giving way. Perhaps I may tempt him a little further. If the Royal Commission were to suggest that there should be some changes, would the Government then be prepared to have the House consider the matter?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the appropriate course is that the report of the Royal Commission should be published, a joint committee should be set up and then the House must consider what is the best method by which the House debates the contents of the commission's report.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, what the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, says or does not say may be interesting. But does the noble and learned Lord accept that this House is the master of its own procedures? It is for us, not for Wakeham.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I respectfully submit that the right approach is for this House to wait for the report from the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. He is seeking to see the role of this House in a wider context rather than simply what the House believes is the right position in relation to its powers. One of the important powers of this House is in relation to delegated legislation. Rather than asserting that the House is master of its own procedure come what may, it may be more prudent to wait for the findings of the Royal Commission. That sets out the basic position.
	During the course of the debate there has been a suggestion that the convention does not exist. Even the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in his acceptance of the need for an amendment to the Parliament Act, acknowledges that there is something there.
	As one would expect, the most eloquent description of the convention came from the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, in the debate introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, in 1994. Much reliance has been placed on the Motion that was passed then; namely,
	"That this House affirms its unfettered freedom to vote on any subordinate legislation submitted for its consideration".
	The noble Viscount immediately agreed that that was the case. He went on to say:
	"As noble Lords know better than I, this House has very broad powers: indeed there are very few formal constraints. The manner in which the House chooses to exercise such powers is crucial. We all know that the proceedings of the House depend in large part on a foundation of agreement as to what is and what is not an appropriate course to pursue. The House could not function so effectively without such consensus--that is, without general agreement to observe the various conventions which regulate our activities".--[Official Report, 20/10/94; col. 360.]
	He said later in the same speech, at col. 361,
	"One such convention is certainly what we are discussing today; namely, that although noble Lords have the right to do so, they do not vote directly on subordinate legislation".
	That is the basis on which the noble Viscount indicated that the then Conservative government would not oppose the Motion introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. The noble Viscount indicated that we accept the Motion, but on the basis that there is a convention that says that we do not vote against subsidiary legislation.

Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I am conscious of the time, and was therefore biting my tongue, as I have been throughout the noble and learned Lord's speech. As he has deliberately trailed his coat, I wonder whether he will accept that there is widespread concern, increasingly widely expressed, about the volume of secondary legislation coming from governments of both parties over the past decade or so in particular. Does he further accept that any government would be unwise not to take account of that concern and at least make a nod in the direction of it by agreeing that the matter deserves consideration--particularly since it is at least conceivable, in spite of what the Government have repeatedly said, that another place might not feel disposed to accept the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Wakeham and that, therefore, the transitional House may last rather longer than even he or I might like?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, there is a great volume of secondary legislation. Another place is considering, through various committees, the most effective way to deal with it. What is clear, both from the content of speeches in this debate and from what I am saying, is that there is effectively a convention that we should not reject secondary legislation in this House. There is broad acceptance of that. The reason is that it is not right to reject the views of the other place. We are wrong at this stage to seek to break with that convention. We must wait for the findings of the Royal Commission. There are separate issues about how the volume of secondary legislation is dealt with. I am glad to say that to some extent that matter is being addressed by the other place.
	Like the noble Viscount, I am conscious of the time. Perhaps I may deal with some further points. First, the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999 does not change the position in relation to the convention. It does not make the House any more democratic than before. The House remains a nominated Chamber that should not take on the other place, as it were. Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, said that because people were members of political parties, those parties controlled too much of what went on in the other place. It is plain that a party label is very much a sine qua non to election to the other place, but that is a decision which has been made by the electorate for many years. There was a time when Members were more independent of parties. But it is up to the electorate whether it prefers people who represent particular parties.

Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, it is late and I apologise to noble Lords. I refer to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, which the Royal Commission has never considered. I do not speak from her experience. The worry expressed from all sides, which I rather hoped the Minister would address, is about the nature of the change with which the noble Baroness was intimately concerned. I rise to my feet even at this late stage in the hope that the noble and learned Lord will comment on the noble Baroness's concern for the whole of democracy.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I shall do so in my third point. The noble Baroness expressed concern about the great weight of legislation, late amendments and the inadequate opportunity to consider until a late stage the detail of those amendments. Plainly, all governments would deprecate any process whereby the ability of both Houses to consider legislation was in any way limited. Whether there needs to be a change in the way that this House considers legislation because of matters of that kind is one of the aspects that the Royal Commission under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, will investigate. It is nothing to do with the 1999 Act or the fact that there is a lower Conservative majority than in the past. It would be wrong in those circumstances for noble Lords to make any change to the practices of this House until the results of the Royal Commission's recommendations are implemented.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I fully understand the noble and learned Lord's point about the need to see what the Royal Commission recommends. But I shall be grateful if the noble and learned Lord can give an indication that in his view the checks and balances that now apply to the executive in the United Kingdom--I do not refer to a specific time or a specific government--have been considerably weakened over the years and that that issue may at some time be required to be addressed urgently.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, to ask whether I believe that overall the checks and balances are inadequate goes far beyond the scope of the Unstarred Question. We are talking about the extent to which this House should restore to itself the power to reject secondary legislation. I believe that at this stage the right course is to continue as we have in the past, wait to see what the Royal Commission recommends and then consider it. I believe that that is the sensible way to deal with it.

Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I apologise for further delaying the matter. It is at least conceivable that there may be some delay before the recommendations of the Royal Commission, whatever they may be, are implemented. During that time governments will continue to legislate in a way that has proved to be unacceptable to Members of this House. The noble and learned Lord takes a position rather like that of St Augustine:
	"Give me chastity ... but not yet".
	Just in case some time elapses before the recommendations are implemented, will the noble and learned Lord give an undertaking that in that event he will depart from the principle that he has just set out and will be prepared to commit the Government at least to considering a mechanism within a short time after the publication of my noble friend's report?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the reason the House adopted particular conventions--in particular the convention about delegated legislation--was because it took the view--rightly--that it would be wrong to take on the other place. Before we decide what we should do about any of that, surely we should look to the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. The opportunity will be given to debate the report of Lord Wakeham and his Royal Commission and then, in relation to that, we will decide the appropriate course.
	It would be quite wrong for me to give the undertaking the noble Viscount seeks. We have not got to the stage where we have seen the Royal Commission report; we have not got to the stage where we know the Government's reaction to it; and we have not got to the stage where this House has had an opportunity to debate its findings. That must be of relevance when the Royal Commission report is to include a part relating to what it thinks the power and reaction of this House should be to delegated legislation.

Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I do apologise. I absolutely undertake that this will be my last intervention.
	I am sure that the noble and learned Lord has noticed that my noble friend's Unstarred Question refers not to this House but to Parliament as a whole. Delegated legislation passes through both Houses of Parliament. That the noble and learned Lord should rely for his defence of the status quo on the proposition that we should await the outcome of my noble friend's Royal Commission report seems to beg the question that the concerns affecting the passage of this huge volume of important legislation do not relate only to the convention as he has expressed it--which I do not wholly accept, but let us not get into that--but affect the passage of legislation from both Houses of Parliament. So far as I know, my noble friend's remit for his Royal Commission does not run as far as reform of another place as well as this one.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I cannot understand why it is not possible to conceive of the proposition that the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, and his Royal Commission have a view on how delegated legislation is dealt with in both Houses of Parliament. I cannot believe it is not possible to conceive of the possibility that, in expressing views about what this House should do, he might--I do not know--express his--

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, may I--

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: No. Let me just finish my response. My Lords, surely the sensible thing to do would be to wait to see what he does say about it. I cannot believe that, if he expresses views about how this House should deal with delegated legislation, it will not be in the context of looking at the whole parliamentary procedure.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I thank the Minister. This is my last intervention. I apologise. I want to know what is the Government's view at this moment. I think we are entitled to know. The Government are seeking to maintain the status quo. They are saying "Wait for Godot. Wait. Wait. Wait", for heaven knows how long. We do not know whether they will implement the recommendations. What is the Government's point of view?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, I do not think that I could have expressed the Government's view with greater clarity than I have. We believe the position is that there exists a convention which means that this House should not vote down secondary legislation; we believe that the right course is for this House to continue to apply that convention until the Royal Commission reports.

Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. Would it be fair to summarise his views--in words which I hope will not be unhelpful so far as concerns his relationship with the Prime Minister--by saying that the Government take an extraordinarily conservative view on this matter.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: No, my Lords. The Government take an extremely sensible view about the way forward at this particular moment. Clarity is very important in these matters.

House adjourned at sixteen minutes before eleven o'clock.